“IMO, the Chinese are using North Korea as a way to keep our pressure off of their massive, and growing, trade surplus with America.”
BINGO! We have a winner.
Apparently, Trump was clear about this (long) before taking office. He met with President Xi in Mar a Largo, and gave him 100 days (nice Chinese touch there) to do the job in North Korea - knowing that the Chinese Communists never had any intention of complying.
Well, that time is up in mid-July, and the hammer is fixing to start dropping on China. All the many deserved economic sanctions that they have escaped using the ploy of their North Korean attack dog will start coming due.
Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross have no doubt been wargaming the rollout of economic measures against the Communists for sometime, so it will be interesting to watch.
The bottom line is that the USA needs to stop tolerating the massive State-sponsored lying, cheating and stealing by the Chinese Communists anyway, so this modest 100 day opportunity to reform was just a formality, to deflect the expected criticism of what is about to happen.
Good comments regarding the economics of the situation.
Don’t overlook the fact that China uses North Korea as a buffer zone for its security, just like Canada uses the USA. Spit!