Many reporters and commentators have claimed the United States has the upper hand in a trade war with China because we have a large trade deficit with China. We import almost $440 billion a year in goods from China, while they import only a bit over $140 billion from us. That means we can impose tariffs on far more Chinese goods than they can on US-made goods.

While that claim is true, it loses sight of what tariffs are. Tariffs are a tax on goods we import. If we do the simple arithmetic on Trump’s 104 percent tariff on China’s goods, he is imposing a........

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