@tower9 I'm going a bit off-topic here but it is a lie that only China earned out of the relationship. The whole point of the US granting those conditions to China in the first place was to isolate the Soviet Union. Only later did it become about increasing corporate America's profits via globalization. As for why the average US citizen profited less from it, there was also abject poverty in Victorian England at the height of the Empire. An Empire is not just necessarily bad for foreign countries. It can treat its own citizens quite miserably. US citizens live in those conditions precisely because of the huge resources funneled into the tools of Empire like foreign wars, rather than investing in its own people.
There are plenty of other countries with similar economic relations with the US, yet why did China rise to this degree while many others failed? Take South America. It is a basket case. You can't ignore the tremendous amount of resources and drive the Chinese put to get to their current position.
Of course as China's economy grew it was rather obvious they would lose some of the favorable trading conditions they had. This should have started happening over a decade ago I think. But what the Trump administration is doing is trying to shackle China into a position of subservience towards the US rather than treating it on an equitable basis.
The way the US is going about it was always going to face friction against China because of their experience with the unequal treaties and how that period is perceived in China. China is not willing to be put into a position of subservience. Nor will they allow the country to be fractured like what happened to the Soviet Union. China would rather put itself into abject poverty first. That's why Xi was put into power with an unlimited term.
I agree that the US has also benefited from the relationship. But what the US has benefited is nothing in comparison to how China has benefited. China today is in a completely different universe compared to what it was before.
If the US never engaged China, it would probably have a smaller GDP and its consumer products would be more expensive, but its dominance in the world would be unquestioned. It would still be the first world, advanced nation that it is.
Global politics is about relative power. In this way, the US has shot itself in the foot by engaging with China and allowing so much access to its resources to China.
And absolutely that is what Trump is doing. And it is COMPLETELY LOGICAL. Why would a dominant power allow a subversive power an opportunity to challenge it. Think about it? WHY?