Trust Is Earned, Not Given

i trust individuals that have consistently shown that they genuinely care about what is in my best interest. So there are bench marks, i guess, for trust. And so in a way, trust is earned, not given completely, just to everybody right at first. I don't have strong feelings of prejudicial distrust for government agencies like some people do. But thinking about trust brings up a lot of questions. For example, is trust given or earned, or both? Has trust become weaponized? Is it increasingly being used as a rhetorical or propaganda device to promote beliefs and persuade others?