President Trump launched his trade war with Beijing in the belief that he could cut the U.S. trade deficit with China.

He has failed.

In fact, the deficit has grown — not only with China, but with most of America’s major trade partners, reports Axios.

The trade balance among 10 if America’s 15 biggest trading partners “moved in the wrong direction for Trump” between the start of 2017 and the end of 2018, while the total deficit with those countries jumped from $503 billion to $628 billion.

Worse, Axios says, citing Commerce Department figures, “the trade deficit in the first 6 months of 2019 is even bigger than in the last two years.”

A chart compiled from government data shows that the global U.S. trade deficit rose by nearly 25% between 2016 and 2018. For Mexico, it was up 26.7%; for the European Union, 23.9%; and for China, 23.3%. The U.S. trade deficits improved significantly with only two major nations: South Korea and India.

Trump's trade war has led to even bigger trade deficits with China, even though it was intended to improve the trade balance. And it's not just China — the deficit has increased with most of our other major trade partners, too, according to Axios. https://t.co/54LgHFAEKm

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 3, 2019

“While economists agree that trade deficits aren’t a good way to measure a trade relationship, they are the metric Trump fixates on, made campaign promises about and uses to evaluate relationships with other countries,” Axios says, which led to his criticism of key allies, straining relations.

“We can turn it all around – and we can turn it around fast.” – Candidate Donald Trump on the trade deficit, 2016

“Trump picked a fight with [Canada’s prime minister] Justin Trudeau over the trade balance, later acknowledging that he made up numbers in arguing that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada.” Axios says. In fact, the U.S. has a surplus with Canada — although that surplus as declined over the past two years.

What’s more, Trump’s own tax cuts have helped fuel the growth of the deficits, the website says, because putting extra money in Americans’ pockets “leads to more consumption, often of Chinese-made goods.”