Donald Trump is a puppet for those with bigger around him, but because of his mania and dementia, it's like having to roll a d6 whenever you try to steer him. I think that unpredictability is part of the issue making it hard to extract what the long term play is.

There's also the incompetence of the ones with the longer term plans making whatever is played out more inscrutable. Although they have actually implemented a significant portion of project 2025.

I personally think it's really funny how if you were to try to reverse engineer his motivations based on the actual outcome, then the most likely answer is that he's a joint Chinese-Russian spy based on how much they've benefited from his elections.