Not only is it true.
A significant proportion of those factories we “trade” with, are in fact owned by the Peoples Liberation Army.
Yet many otherwise sensible conservatives, simply are determined not to see. Brainwashed that anything called “free trade” simply cannot be a bad thing.
Except what we have is not free, nor “trade”. Trade implies reciprocity. Do we sell things to China?
Recall the Emperor’s new set of clothes; all those people, agreeing the Emperors new clothes were so very nice.
Well, yes, we do -- to the tune of about $100 billion/year.
And, cringing, you have to bear in mind that our dollars are worth as much to the Chinese as reserves than they are to buy our products. That's not the fault of the Chinese.
They use those dollars, for example, to buy oil. And they use those dollars to buy our debt and keep the bonds as reserves to back up their own money supply. Don't blame the Chinese for that, either. If our government didn't issue debt, there wouldn't be any for them to buy.
Our status as the reserve currency issuer is a big factor in our trade deficit.