It may be the reverse: a trade war damages the currency of the country it targets. The United States has an enormous trade gap with China. That is, the U.S. imports more than $271 billion worth of goods from China and exports nearly $72 billion, as of June 2022. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump tried to correct that imbalance by imposing a raft of tariffs on Chinese goods entering the U.S. This protectionist policy was aimed at increasing the prices of Chinese goods and therefore making them less attractive to U.S. buyers. One effect was an apparent shift in U.S. manufacturing orders from China to other Asian nations such as Vietnam. Another effect was a weakening of the Chinese currency, the renminbi. Less demand for Chinese products led to less demand for the Chinese currency.