Trump lost the trade war he started with China. He failed to boost manufacturing, level the playing field for American workers, or increase exports, and his trade war cost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Now, China isn’t even living up to the trade deal, yet the Trump administration continues to defend China in order to cover for Trump’s failures.

Evidence continues to mount that Trump lost the trade war with China that he started.

CNN: “Trump Promised To Win The Trade War With China. He Failed”

Wall Street Journal: “China Trade War Didn’t Boost U.S. Manufacturing Might”

Trump failed to boost U.S. manufacturing, level the playing field for American workers, or increase U.S. exports.

Wall Street Journal: “President Trump’s trade war against China didn’t achieve the central objective of reversing a U.S. decline in manufacturing, economic data show, despite tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods to discourage imports.”

CNN: “US President Donald Trump started a trade war with China to fix what he’s repeatedly blasted as an unfair relationship between the world’s two largest economies. But as the president makes his case for a second term ahead of November’s election, he doesn’t have much to show for a bruising trade battle that has been a cornerstone of his foreign policy. Trump vowed to cut the US trade deficit, but instead it’s reached historic highs. He wanted China to buy more American products, but that hasn’t happened as much as Washington would like. And he’s made almost no progress on big structural issues that American companies care most about.”

Trump’s trade war with China cost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, even before the pandemic hit. 

Wall Street Journal: “An industry-by-industry analysis by the Federal Reserve showed that tariffs did help boost employment by 0.3%, in industries exposed to trade with China, by giving protection to some domestic industries to cheaper Chinese imports. But these gains were more than offset by higher costs of importing Chinese parts, which cut manufacturing employment by 1.1%. Retaliatory tariffs imposed by China against U.S. exports, the analysis found, reduced U.S. factory jobs by 0.7%.”

Wall Street Journal: “However, about 75% of the increase in manufacturing jobs occurred before the first tranche of tariffs took effect against China in July 2018, when annual growth in manufacturing jobs peaked and then began to decline. By early 2020, even before the pandemic reached the U.S., manufacturing job growth had stalled out, and factories shed workers in four of the six months through March.”

Brookings: “Now, there have been various studies that tried to estimate the overall effect of the tariffs. They have all found a net job loss in the U.S. as a result of Trump’s tariffs, and the numbers are big. They range from 175,000 in one credible study to 300,000 in another credible study jobs destroyed by Trump’s tariffs and the retaliation that they inevitably drew.”

The U.S. trade deficit has grown under Trump despite his promise to narrow the deficit and all of the damage he inflicted with his trade policies.

CNN: “Despite Trump’s pledge to narrow America’s trade deficit by slapping heavy tariffs on Chinese goods, the gap by which imports exceeded exports in August widened to more than $67 billion, its highest monthly tally in 14 years. The deficit with China alone fell about 7% from July but was still about $26 billion, according to the US Census Bureau.”

AFP: “Trump has indeed shaken up the global trading system but the US trade deficit has grown under his presidency, and analysts say he has little to show for his efforts. ‘Trump’s trade policies have delivered few tangible benefits to the US economy while undercutting the multilateral trading system, disrupting long-standing alliances with US trading partners, and fomenting uncertainty,’ said Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad.”

ProPublica: “So far, the promised benefits of this upheaval are hard to see. The gap between American imports and exports of goods is as big as it’s ever been, while manufacturing output and job growth flatlined in 2019. To the extent that manufacturers have pulled out of China, they’ve shifted to countries like Vietnam and Mexico, rather than set up factories in the U.S.”

New numbers show China is still not living up to the trade deal, but the Trump administration released a report to defend China and cover up for Trump’s failures.

Bloomberg: “Trump Administration Claims On Farm Trade Progress Questioned”

Peterson Institute For International Economics: “Through the first nine months of 2020, China’s purchases of all covered products were thus only at 54 percent (US exports) or 53 percent (Chinese imports) of their year-to-date targets.”

Bloomberg: “China agreed to buy $36.5 billion in American agricultural products in 2020, up from $24 billion in 2017, the year before the trade war started. In the first eight months of the year, U.S. exports of agricultural goods and related products only reached $10.7 billion, still below 2017 levels, USDA data showed.”