I have the impression we "opened up China" to one-way trade. It seems to me we gave away our manufacturing by letting Chinese (slave-labor) imports undercut lots of American companies into non-existence. And now enough people have noticed that it's time for tariffs again.
Richard Nixon told political journalist Theodore White:
“We can’t run the world without China”
“The Making of the President: 1968” the title of the book this was in.
Inflation was kicking up at the end of the 1960’s how was business to react?
Turn China into a cheap labor zone since inflation was driving everything sky high here in the USA.