Donald Trump is right about one thing: China is killing the U.S. on trade.
A new analysis from HowMuch.net released yesterday shows that the U.S.-China trade gap isn't just at a historic high -- it's at its most imbalanced ever...
The United States exported $116 billion to China in 2015 - which isn't bad. In fact, it's 30 times what it had been three decades ago, in 1985.
But by comparison, China exported more than four times that amount to the United States last year, at $481 billion. That's a $365 billion gap between the States and the Red Dragon in 2015 - the largest ever realized.
Now here's a look at exactly how that imbalance came to be...
The Origins of the U.S.-China Trade Gap
Back in 1985, the United States exported $3.9 billion worth of trade to China. We imported goods and services from the Red Dragon for exactly the same amount.
But then the scales tipped...
America's exports to China progressed fitfully starting in 1986 - even reverting to "negative growth" territory that year and on four other occasions: 1990, 1999, 2009, and 2015. Last year saw the most serious drop, down $7.5 billion from 2014.
Meanwhile, China's exports to the U.S. grew exponentially (with the exception of 2009 - the peak of the Great Recession). In fact, between 1985 and 2000, China's exports increased by $100 billion - from $3.9 billion to $103.9 billion.
And from there it mostly kept growing. Even after China's exports dropped by a whopping $41.4 billion in 2009, they increased by $68.3 billion (68.6%) in 2010, bringing them to a massive total of $365 billion that year -- completely compensating for the previous year's loss.
Have a look at this progressive imbalance. Here's a year-by-year display of the trade gap between the U.S. and China over the past three decades...
Sources: HowMuch.net, Money Morning Staff Research
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