relatively quiet about the trump tariffs and giving donald trump a very long leash in which he appears to be getting himself all tangled up politically. donald trump launched the trade war with china because he thought the united states trade deficit with china was too high. now it is higher. axios is reporting president trump's trade war has led to even bigger trade deficits with china, even though it was intended to improve the trade balance. but it's not just china. the deficit has increased with most of our other trade partners, too. among the u.s. '15 biggest trading partners, the trade balance has moved in the wrong direction for trump in ten of those countries between 2016 and 2018, while the aggregate trade deficit has jumped from $503 billion to $628 billion. "the new york times" reports the american manufacturing sector contracted last month. a key measure showed on tuesday