China produces, while the U.S. consumes on credit.
Trump doesn’t get it because "he never made it to the second day of econ class."
This has been a disaster in the making for decades though. Dating probably as far back as 1970's if not farther back, when they introduced their biggest scam named Petrodollar and the dollar became the currency used for international trades.
This decision destroyed the production based US economy and turned it into a debt based economy. For decades they printed dollar (created debt) and bought real goods with it! That chicken has come home to roost now...
The tariffs are a magicians trick to distract the world
A lot of the things he does are indeed a distraction and just chest pounding but not tariffs. The budget deficit is $2 trillion and the situation is deteriorating rapidly while the spending is on the rise. For example they just wasted over a billion dollar in the Red Sea trying and failing to open it for the Zionist occupiers of Palestine in a couple of weeks.
Even though tariffs will cover only a tiny bit of that deficit but it is still something, it definitely is not a distraction.