The trade imbalance between China and the United States is becoming a tool for Washington to pursue its "America First" ob-jective. U.S. President Donald Trump has on several occasions threatened to impose steep tariffs on com-modities from China and other countries because he sees the United States as "the victim of a global trade war." In January, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on imports of washing ma-chines and solar panels, coming mostly from South Korea and China, respectively. The latest data from China Customs show that China's exports to the U.S. market reached 2.91 tril-lion yuan ($465.2 bilion) in 2017, while imports from the United States amounted to 1.04 trillion yuan ($166.2 billion). China's trade surplus against the United States was 1.87 trilion yuan ($298.9 bilion), up 13 percent from of 2016. But is the trade imbal-ance realy unfair to the United States? Is it fair to judge the trade relationship simply on the basis of surplus or deif cit?