Decades-Long Trade Imbalance with China Coming to an End?

Finally we have a president willing to actually do something about the disastrous trade imbalance that we now have with China, which has been growing steadily for decades.  Back in the mid 1990’s, the annual trade imbalance with China was merely $10+ billion — a manageable amount — but it has ballooned from those modest levels to $375 billion for 2017 — that is, at the end of a 2017, China, for that year alone, was net $375 billion richer and we were that much poorer.

Frankly, given how gigantic this trade imbalance has become, if we had zero trade with China, the United States would be better off — because we would no longer see this massive wealth transfer from our shores to theirs.  Of course, a balanced trade with China where they buy as much from us as we buy from them would be ideal, but short of…