China is currently our largest goods trading partner with $559.2 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2020. Goods exports totaled $124.5 billion; goods imports totaled $434.7 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $310.3 billion in 2020.https://ustr.gov › countries-regions It's absurd to say it's either all to the benefits or interest of China or nothing. Yes, we have a trade deficit with China, but it is our largest export market, after Canada and Mexico.
This is what China likes to think but it's not true. China is US' largest import trading partner that's true but Canada is and has always been US' largest export trading partner. In other words, US' largest export goes to Canada and not China. China is only the third largest export trading partner of US and yet when US imports, it imports the most from China. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-largest-trading-partners-2022/ And interestingly, China's largest exports go to United States and yet when it imports, US is only its third largest import trading partner as of 2021. https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country, https://tradingeconomics.com/china/imports-by-country. China exported $577 billion to United States and yet it only imported $181 billion from the US, a third of what it dumped on United States. So yeah, it is all benefits or interest of China or nothing. Numbers don't lie. And this is after all the tariffs that are imposed on China's imports. Imagine how large the trade gap was when there were no tariffs.
Clearly you didn't read my entire post and you're confused about trade. When Apple makes its products in China, they're considered Chinese export that contribute to our trade deficit. If Apple made its products in Mexico or Canada or, better yet, in the US, the retail price of their products would go up by 30 to 50%. Demand would drop, profits would drop, market share would drop, share price would collapse and Apple would struggle to survive. The point is, China benefits from being the world's manufacturing hub, consumers benefit from cheaper goods and the companies making their goods in China grow to become giants for us traders to speculate on.
Yeah that's the pitch that globalists sell to the world but like I said, the numbers don't lie. Regardless how cheap the price is, for every $1 that we get from selling to China, we pay $3 more when buying from China. The location of where a company makes its goods is irrelevant. And the share price would not collapse and the company would not struggle LOL just because it's making its stuff in China. People buy Apple's products not because it's cheap; people buy it because of its concept and its design. If one day Apple does struggle to survive, it's not because all of sudden it's manufacturing stuff outside of China it's because people don't like the product itself anymore. China has contributed to the world economy with its manufacturing efficiency (mostly because it has a huge working population) but it's not irreplaceable. And if China wants other countries to continue to do business with it then it needs to learn to co-operate and not dictate its rules onto others with the attitude of "it's either my way or the highway" like this: then people would choose the highway, decoupling and not do business in China.