Actually, the trade imbalance does help our economy. We get the products of their labor, and they get worthless pieces of paper (dollars).
Only when they take those pieces of paper back to someone who wants them can they derive benefit from them. Eventually someone brings the paper back to the US and trades it for US goods and services.
I cannot believe that the imbalance "favors us." The dollars they are spending are not all for our goods either. They are also buying from Russia etc.