In that same announcement speech, Trump made another compound claim that was also doubly false — as well as being key to his campaign. He said:
We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.
The first thing false about this claim is that we don’t have any trade deals with China. Our trade relations with China aren’t based upon “deals.” They are based on our membership in the World Trade Organization, which China joined in 2001, long after the rules were established. China doesn’t “kill us” in trade deals, because there are no such deals.
The second false thing is that we do kill China on trade, anyway. The WTO has a dispute resolution process and, as pointed out on the U.S. Trade Representative’s Enforcement page, the Obama administration’s record was remarkable. The U.S. has launched 23 enforcement actions at the WTO since 2009, which is more than any other country. Fourteen of those, or 60 percent, were directed at China, and the U.S. has won every one of its trade enforcement challenges decided so far, “worth billions of dollars in trade opportunities for U.S. exporters.”