But didn’t Nixon make the sale based on it would turn China into an ally and modernize their democracy of did that come later?
A more minor issue is Nixon taking the USA off the gold standard which has lead to runaway inflation.
Didn’t he also try to enact price controls? He seems to be an interventionist at best, a socialist at worst?
First of all, Nixon was not a Socialist of any stripe!
Inflation has been a part of America's financial history forever; on and off. It's far worse today ( though NOBODY ever talks about it! ) and over the past 40 or so years, than it ever was before and being off the "gold standard" has had nothing at all to do with it!
You need to educate yourself about the history of the "GOLD STANDARD"; both here and world wide...why and how the price fluctuated,who set it, who, when, and why a nation took their nation off it, and the results! And no, I am not going to spoon feed this info to you!
Going back in time, DEPRESSIONS ( which this nation has gone through and several as bad, if not worse than the one that began in 1929, 1987, and 2008 )resulted in prices of everything falling. That no longer happens. Recessions were accompanied by inflation, as were BUBBLES.
I've explained to you about China and Russian banding together and separating them being the large part of the reason that Nixon did the whole "OPEN CHINA" thing. Have you NO idea at all what the world situation was like back then? Sadly, it appears that you don't; which makes any further discussion, with you impossible!