The “China Shock” offers a lesson. He’s not the one Trump learned.

When the Congress voted to normalize trade relations with China at the start of this century, American manufacturers have prepared for a inexpensive product flow to start to flow into American ports.

Instead, they had a flood. Imports from China almost tripled from 1999 to 2005, and American factories, with their higher wages and stricter safety standards, could not compete. The “Chinese shock”, as we know, destroyed millions of jobs in the years that have followed, leaving lasting scars on Michigan communities in Mississippi.

For President Trump and his supporters, these losses of employment are a lesson in the object of damage caused by decades of American commercial policy – damage which he promises that his prices will now contribute to reverse. On Wednesday, he also increased his rights to imports from China, far beyond 100%, even if he suspended steep prices which he had imposed on other business partners.

Few economists approve of the idea that the United States should try to bring in mass manufacturing jobs. Even less believe that prices would be an effective tool for doing so.

But economists who studied the question also argue that Trump does not understand the nature of Chinese shock. The real lesson of the episode did not concern at all trade, they say – it was the balance sheet that rapid economic changes can take workers and communities – and by not understanding this, Mr. Trump risks repeating the errors he claims to have promised to correct.

“In the past 20 years, we have heard of Chinese shock and its brutal and the way people cannot adapt,” said Scott Lincicome, trade economist at Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization. “And finally, after most places have evolved, now we shocked them again.”