This January, when President Joe Biden was serving his last weeks in office and turning over the presidency to Donald Trump, the United States ran a $31.7 billion trade deficit with the People's Republic of China.
That was the largest trade deficit the United States ran that month with any nation -- and it continued a long-standing pattern.
In 2024, according to data published by the Census Bureau, America's annual trade deficit with China was $295.402 billion. That was not only the largest trade deficit the United States ran with any country, it was also larger than the trade deficit the United States ran with the entire European Union ($235.571 billion).
In 2023, the United States ran a $279.107 billion trade deficit with China. In 2022, it was $382.133 billion; in 2021, it was $352.806 billion; in 2020, it was $310.263 billion; and in 2019, it was $344.312 billion.
These persistent trade deficits have transferred wealth to a nation whose government, according to the State Department, is abusing the rights of its workers and (as this column has noted before) is engaging in "[g]enocide and crimes against humanity ... against predominately Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang."
"Significant human rights issues," said the latest State Department report on human rights in China (which covered 2023), "included credible reports of ... trafficking in persons, including forced labor; the prohibition of independent trade unions and systematic restrictions on workers' freedom of association; and existence of some of the worst forms of child labor."
"There were reports of child labor in the manufacturing, service, and retail sectors," said the State Department.
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A Congressional Research Service report published in December also cited evidence of forced labor practices in China.
"PRC assimilation policies in Tibetan areas have included resettling and urbanizing nomads and farmers; those policies include elements of forced labor, according to some reports," said the CRS.
"Many Uyghurs reportedly have been assigned to factory and other employment in Xinjiang and other PRC provincial-level jurisdictions under conditions that indicate forced labor," said this CRS report.
The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), a division of the U.S. Department of Labor, published a list last September of goods made in countries using child or forced labor. It included 30 items from the People's Republic of China.
One was aluminum. "There are reports that adults in China are forced to produce aluminum used in manufactured goods," it says. "Reports indicate that Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities from the (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) are frequently subjected to forced labor in China through state-sponsored labor transfer programs."
The report goes on to say: "Aluminum from Xinjiang is used to produce aluminum-intensive auto parts in China ... In 2022, China was the world's largest aluminum manufacturer and the second-largest autoparts supplier to the U.S."
According to the Census Bureau, the United States imported $507,828,945 in "bauxite and aluminum" from China last year.
The United States in 2024 also imported from China $20,336,444,805 in "apparel, textiles, nonwool or cotton"; $5,500,241,526 in "apparel, household goods -- cotton"; $122,471,732 in "cotton cloth, fabrics"; and $674,482 in "cotton, natural fibers."
"ILAB has reason to believe that cotton thread/yarn, cotton textiles, and cotton garments produced in China are made with an input produced with forced labor -- specifically cotton harvested in China," says the Department of Labor's report.
Then there are the toys.
The United States imported $30,807,174,457 in Chinese-made "toys, games, and sporting goods" in 2024.
"There are reports that children, mostly ages 13-16, are forced to produce toys in China," said the report. "The most recently available data from an NGO study indicates that hundreds of children are exploited in this manner."
"In addition," said the report, "employers withhold wages for months to prevent children from leaving."
In 2024, the United States imported only two products from China more than "toys, games, and sporting goods." These were "cell phones and other household goods" ($64,089,133,969) and "computers" ($34,309,508,305).
Then there were the fentanyl precursors -- which are not included in the Census Bureau's trade data.
"On average, fentanyl kills over 200 Americans daily, the equivalent of a packed Boeing 737 crashing every single day," said a report published last April by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. "The PRC, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the ultimate geographic source of the fentanyl crisis. Companies in China produce nearly all of illicit fentanyl precursors, the key ingredients that drive the global illicit fentanyl trade."
On Feb. 1, President Trump responded to the fentanyl crisis by announcing he was imposing a 10% tariff on Chinese imports. "[T]he Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which exerts ultimate control over the government and enterprises of the PRC, has subsidized and otherwise incentivized PRC chemical companies to export fentanyl and related precursor chemicals that are used to produce synthetic opioids sold illicitly in the United States," said Trump.
"The influx of these drugs to our Nation threatens the fabric of our society," he said.
On March 3, Trump announced he was increasing the tariff on Chinese imports to 20%.
"I have determined that the PRC has not taken adequate steps to alleviate the illicit drug crisis through cooperative enforcement actions," Trump said then.
He should continue increasing the tariff until the flow of fentanyl precursors stops -- and we no longer run a trade deficit with a communist regime that engages in forced labor and genocide.
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