China, in his words · First term · № 45
Called the China trade deficit "out of control" while announcing Section 301 tariffs
“But we have a trade deficit, depending on the way you calculate, of $504 billion. Now, some people would say it's really $375 billion. Many different ways of looking at it, but any way you look at it, it is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world. It's out of control. We have a tremendous intellectual property theft situation going on, which likewise is hundreds of billions of dollars.”
- Said
- , Remarks on signing a Section 301 memorandum on China, the White House
- Subject
- trade deficit and IP theft
- Threat
- Economic threat
- Topic
- Trade & tariffs
- Era
- First term
What the record showed
In the same remarks Trump said of China, "I view them as a friend; I have tremendous respect for President Xi." Census Bureau figures put the 2017 goods deficit with China at $375.2 billion; it rose to $418.2 billion in 2018 before falling to $342.6 billion in 2019. By February 2020 average U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods were 19.3 percent, more than six times the January 2018 level, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. China ultimately bought 58 percent of the U.S. exports it committed to purchase under the January 2020 Phase One agreement.
Sources
- Remarks on Signing a Memorandum on Actions by the United States Related to the Section 301 Investigation of China's Laws, Policies, Practices, or Actions Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation and an Exchange With Reporters
- Trade in Goods with China
- US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart
- China bought none of the extra $200 billion of US exports in Trump's trade deal