...it's horseshit.

My over simplified summary would be...

Americans are, and have done very well from being, the biggest consumer society on the planet.

It's been a global economy with largely free trade.

This means the consumer decides what they want.

This has resulted in large parts of the American (and Western economy) moving to other countries who can make something better/cheaper.

But it was never a huge anti US conspiracy, it was just market forces which impacted the biggest consumer society in the world more than others.

So now, Trump has decided it's 1983 and that he wants a self sustaining domestic economy so he's imposing tariffs on the rest of the world to make imported goods too expensive and drive trade into US businesses

Which is fine....I'm not gonna argue the rights and wrongs of that, each to their own.

But let's not pretend it's not without consequences.

And those consequences are significant inflation of goods to the consumer. Forcing them into a situation where choice is limited to potentially inferior but affordable US goods, or where a domestic alternative doesn't exist then significant price rises on the existing goods they are used to buying

The other side of this is you impact the economies of those countries who had previously traded in this global expansive market, because suddenly demand for their stuff tanks.

So what's the response? Tit for tat.

You don't get to change the rules we've all played by for 40 odd years arbitrarily and start lashing out without getting a bloody nose yourself