Trump has a 30% stake in that building, a 43-story skyscraper on the Avenue of the Americas. That fact poses several problems for Trump as he tries to sell voters on the idea that Biden would be a pushover for China’s president Xi Jinping.

In particular, Trump has fixated on the Bank of China's role in a $1.5 billion deal that the business partners of Biden's son Hunter made public in 2013. But now Trump has his own billion-dollar deal with the same bank, minted by his own business partner. Seems pretty hard to imagine Biden would be more beholden to China than Trump already is.

Trump's giant conflict of interest here makes one wonder what kind of strings China is pulling behind the scenes. Remember the early days of the coronavirus when Trump kept lauding China for its transparency and its handling of the crisis? That was in January and February, before the magnitude of the pandemic’s impact on America had come into clear view.

But as the novel coronavirus ravaged the country, both Republicans and Trump campaign aides alike decided scapegoating China was among their best strategies for remaining viable this fall. So what's the problem? Trump isn't adhering to the strategy.

The New York Times writes that Trump himself has "repeatedly muddied Republican efforts to fault China." The Times chalked that up to Trump's desire to cement a trade deal with the superpower and avoid rattling the markets.

But for some reason, after making a huge point of referring to the novel coronavirus as "the Chinese virus" around mid-March, Trump retreated from that position "after a telephone call with Mr. Xi."

Hmm. Fancy that.