billion worth of american goods. the news was met with outrage at the white house where the president took to twitter and attempted to order all american companies to cut their ties with china. all american companies. no more trade with china. of course, that s ridiculous. trump tweeted we don t need china and frankly we would be better off without them. our great american companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to china, including bringing your companies home and making your products in the usa. that s the president this morning trumpeting powers he doesn t possess. however, the washington post points out the white house does not have the authority to force companies to follow such directives as that. according to the census bureau, the united states has $380 billion trade deficit with china in 2018. a deficit that appears to be increasing this year. look at those numbers. trump s tweeting ignited a rapid selloff off wall street. the dow that had