The whole sales pitch was that China was going to pay. Not you — China. Tariffs were going to force them to capitulate, manufacturing was coming home, and American workers were going to win big. What actually happened: tariffs hit 145%, the US shed over 100,000 manufacturing jobs, small manufacturers watched their profit margins drop 24%, and the average household is out $1,500 this year in higher prices. Not China. You.
So Trump flew to Beijing. First US president to visit China in nearly a decade. He came back with soybeans and Boeing planes. China agreed to buy American agricultural products because they need them, not because they surrendered. The White House and Beijing can’t even agree on what they agreed on — Al Jazeera ran the headline “China, US disagree on what they agreed to” the day he left. The manufacturing renaissance hasn’t materialized. The tariffs are largely still in place. And the workers who lost their jobs aren’t getting them back because Xi Jinping signed a soybean purchase order.
The $1,500 you paid in higher prices this year doesn’t vanish because Trump got a photo in the Forbidden City. This was never about workers winning. It was about a man who needed to look like he won. He got his photo op. You got the bill.