Donald Trump blames China.

Again.

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.

I'm your host Chris Chappell.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy,

whether it's making sexual innuendos about other politicians…

or saying China is raping the United States.

"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country,

and that's what they're doing."

And who's to blame?

The victim of course!

“China's great. No problem.

I'm not angry with China… I'm angry at our leaders,

because they are grossly incompetent

and they shouldn't have ever been elected to do this job.”

Now if you're like me,

your reaction to this was probably the same as your reaction to,

really, this entire election cycle…

“Jane, stop this crazy thing! Jane!”

Sorry George,

there's no stopping this crazy, out-of-control ride.

So is Trump correct that China is "raping" the United States?

Well, some are pointing out that perhaps Trump is being

a tad insensitive in his use of descriptors.

But the United States does have a huge trade deficit with China.

In 2015, the US bought $480 billion worth of Chinese goods.

That's about one-fifth of all US imports.

But the US only sold about $115 billion of goods to China last year.

And that marked the biggest annual trade deficit with China ever.

According to a 2013 report by the American Economic Review,

one million American factory jobs have been lost to China.

So what could Donald Trump actually do about this if elected?

We'll, he's suggested this:

a 45% tariff on Chinese goods.

Which he cannot do.

You can't impose tariffs on entire countries.

What you can do under existing laws

is to set out specific categories of imports

you want to put a tariff on,

like the US did to Chinese tires in 2009.

The result?

Tires just got imported from Indonesia, Mexico, and Thailand.

And no, there were not suddenly more US jobs manufacturing tires.

But it's not easy to place these tariffs

because you'd have to prove specific violations of trade rules

to the World Trade Organization.

They're the ones that regulate global commerce.

You see, when the WTO was set up in 1995,

the rules laid out didn't really take into consideration

dealing with China—

a country where the Communist Party

has pretty murky ties to just about everything,

including the handling of the economy.

It's not really communism,

but the government is way more involved than in most countries.

If a president Trump decide to say "screw it"

and did impose a broad China tariff, well,

that would kind of mean global trade laws no longer matter.

And that goes against US policy

going as far back as the end of World War II.

It was thought that increasing international trade

would prevent international conflict.

And so the US has been lowering tariffs.

According to the World Bank,

the US imposes some of the lowest tariff rates in the world.

And US manufacturing output right now is at an all-time high.

So it's not that China is stealing US manufacturing jobs,

it's that technology is stealing US jobs.

Because a lot of the jobs that used to be done by humans

have become automated.

Like bowling alley pinsetters.

Or switchboard operators.

Or checkout clerks.

And having a trade deficit is not in of itself a bad thing.

The US economy runs on consumption,

and boy are we good at it!

"Can he break his own record of 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes?

With seconds on the clock,

[Joey] Chestnut manages to do the impossible."

That also means China has a lot of US dollars floating around.

And though that's not going into buying US goods,

it is being used to buy US services.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis,

the US has a service surplus with China.

Though in 2014, it was only $28 billion,

so not nearly as much as the trade deficit.

But here's the thing: Trump has a point.

No, not that China is stealing our jobs directly.

But according to one expert I interviewed,

the US loses an estimated $5 trillion a year to China

—yes, trillion—

due to intellectual property theft

spearheaded by the Chinese military.

Not to mention all this trade and theft

are basically what prop up a cruel, tyrannical regime.

It's just that, when you put things like this…

"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country…"

though people will listen, they might not take it seriously.

What do you think?

Leave your comments below.

Once again I'm Chris Chappell, and I'm voting for…

cthulhu!