https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/trumps_china_tariffs_will_succeed.html
Free trade with China is like “free trade” with the thief who stole your car.
For the last four decades, the United States has often engaged in trading away its future by running up debt and selling assets instead of products. This brought about the stagnant living standards and incomes experienced by the U.S. middle class during the presidencies preceding Trump.
The countries with which the U.S. had the largest trade deficits (goods and services) in 2018 were:
China – $379 billion
Mexico – $78 billion
Germany – $67 billion
Japan – $58 billion.
These countries accounted for 93% of the total, with China, by itself, accounting for 61% of the U.S. trade deficit. Donald Trump was elected by the people who have borne the brunt of this policy failure, with a mandate to fix it.
On Friday, President Donald Trump took a huge step toward doing just that. He raised the U.S. tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $200 billion per year worth of Chinese goods that were being imported into the United States. Back in July, when Trump had initially imposed the 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, China responded by imposing tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. exports to China.