American politicians and economists have obsessed over the U.S. trade deficit with China for years.
Lowering the deficit was one of former President Donald Trump’s goals in imposing tariffs on the majority of Chinese imports. President Biden’s administration is debating whether to peel them off to alleviate inflation or keep them on to pressure China. After all, they did appear to achieve one of Mr. Trump’s purposes: reducing the bilateral deficit between the U.S. and China, which according to the official U.S. trade statistics topped $400 billion a year in 2018.