A major culprit is the US doesn't include goods made and sold in China by US firms @LynAldenContact . Think about all those iPhones made in China, sold in China, and revenue sent back to Cupertino but not included trade data. According to the NY Fed: "...while the United States only exported $130 billion of goods to China in 2017, sales by U.S. multinationals in China amounted to $376 billion that year. Although the large bilateral deficit in 2017 was driven by the fact that U.S. exports to China were only a quarter as large as Chinese exports to the United States, total sales (exports plus multinational sales) by U.S. firms in China were $505 billion—only 11 percent lower than total sales by Chinese firms in the U.S. market ($570 billion)."