The Trump administration’s peace overtures to North Korea are rooted in the U.S. desire to have a “friendly regime on China’s border,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author and professor of African American Studies at the University of Houston. “There is hysteria in Washington in regard to China being in the passing lane,” said Horne, who characterized Trump, national security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as “Maybury Machiavellians.”