“When I came [into office] we were heading in a certain direction that was going to allow China to be bigger than us in a very short period of time,” Trump said to a cheering audience in West Virginia. “That’s not going to happen any more,” he reassured them, adding: “I want to be their friend, but we had to do things that we had to do.” One means to this end, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said last May, was to keep China from moving up the manufacturing value chain.