Some of this stuff, like China, may be a part of a larger strategy or just a waypoint in negotiations. For example, North Korea has been a looming threat for a long time that prior Presidents refused to address. Trump is addressing it now in a way that I personally never saw coming, but that I support.
For someone to ask him right now about China as a currency manipulator is a classic "gotcha". They know that it would be dumb as hell for him to start slamming China right when he's trying to put together an important coalition against NK. So they ask it, and of course he backs off it because to do otherwise would derail something else he's trying to accomplish. So I'd want to see how that whole thing comes down at the end before judging him.
Don't like the Export-Import at all, but again, we don't know if this is part of a give and take that includes something on other issues, and of course part of the logic of the EIB is to offset foreign competition. So maybe that's just a different, less aggressive form of pressure against China.
Perhaps he'll end up simply abandoning all that stuff and laughing at us for believing him, perhaps not. I just find it kind of interesting that at the precise moment we're engaging in some pretty critical brinksmanship in the ME and North Korea, that these kind of articles/opinion pieces are popping up.
