China, in his words · Between terms · № 88
Says China raped and pillaged the United States on trade
“And I stood up to China like no president in history, taking in billions and billions and billions of dollars and tariffs and taxes. No other president took in 10 cents. They never did anything. They came in and they raped and pillaged our country, and we never did anything.”
- Said
- , Rally in Wilmington, North Carolina
- Subject
- trade abuse
- Threat
- Economic threat
- Topic
- Trade & tariffs
- Era
- Between terms
What the record showed
The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $382.3 billion in 2022, the year of the speech, and $202.7 billion in 2025, according to Census Bureau data. In his second term, tariffs on Chinese goods reached at least 145% in 2025 before a truce announced on May 12, 2025, cut them to 30%. After Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington in September 2026, the two governments released lists of products for tariff cuts covering about $30 billion of trade on each side. The Associated Press reported an analyst estimate that the average U.S. tariff rate on Chinese goods would drop from around 22% to roughly 20.5%, compared with roughly 11% before his return to office.