It’ll be a lot worse if the Chinese get their hands on all the resources they are trying to illegally wrest from those who legitimately own them (Philippines, Japan, etc...)
The Chinese at this point can be deterred without great risk, and doing so keeps them deterrable. If they ever get the upper hand in terms of resources, THEN we are in real trouble.
The Chinese are very busy snapping up natural resources, minerals, etc. all over the world. They have enough people, that they consider expendable, that it will be horrible when we wind up fighting them.
And all those dollars spent on Chinese products are bankrolling their aquisitions and military build up. I don’t buy Chinese if I can avoid it. I wouldn’t care if we did put a tariff on them, especially if we lowered the income tax at the same time.