Americans spent more money in 2022 buying imports from a country governed by a genocidal, communist regime than they spent on imports from any other nation on Earth.

Specifically, U.S. imports from China last year equaled $536,754,100,000, according to data published by the Census Bureau.

That was more than the $534,507,900,000 that Americans spent on imports from Germany ($146,608,000,000), South Korea ($115,338,200,000), Ireland ($82,034,500,000), Italy ($69,130,000,000), the United Kingdom ($64,018,500,000) and France ($57,378,700,000) combined.

The $536,754,100,000 that the United States paid for imports from Communist China last year was also more than what we paid for imports from our neighboring countries of Mexico ($454,930,000,000), which was our second-greatest source of imports, and Canada ($437,729,000,000), which was our third-greatest source.

But while Canada and Mexico were the two biggest consumers of U.S. exports in 2022 -- buying $356,112,600,000 and $324,377,900,000 respectively in U.S. goods -- China did not even buy one-third as much in goods from the United States as we bought from them.

While Americans were buying those $536,754,100,000 in imports from Communist China, Communist China was buying only $153,837,100,000 in exports from the United States.

The result was that the United States ran a $382,917,000,000 merchandise trade deficit with Communist China in 2022.

That was the largest trade deficit the United States ran with any country last year. In fact, the $382,917,000,000 trade deficit that the United States ran with Communist China in 2022 was larger than the combined $372,200,000,000 deficit that the United States ran with Mexico ($130,600,000,000), Vietnam ($116,100,000,000), Canada ($81,600,000,000) and South Korea ($43,900,000,000). The $382,917,000,000 trade deficit that United States ran with China in 2022 was also bigger than the trade deficits the United States ran with China in 2021 ($376,309,070,000) and in 2020 ($351,109,440,00) even when those deficits are adjusted for inflation (as they are here) into December 2022 dollars.

This is not free trade. It is subsidization of a communist regime that engages in genocide.

The State Department has been unambiguous in declaring that the Chinese government is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The first sentence in the department’s latest report on human rights in China states: “The People’s Republic of China is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party is the paramount authority.”

As this column noted last week, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in January 2021 that this communist regime is engaging in genocide.

“I have determined that the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” Pompeo said. “I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state.”

As this column also noted last week, the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, stated during his 2021 confirmation hearing that he agreed with Pompeo that the PRC was committing genocide. Since then, he has restated this point. Just two weeks ago, Blinken flatly said that the PRC is “perpetrating ongoing genocide.”

“This past November, I named a dozen nations as ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ because of their egregious violations of religious freedom, from Russian authorities raiding and brutally beating Jehovah’s Witnesses to the People’s Republic of China perpetrating an ongoing genocide against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs,” Blinken said in a videotaped address to the International Religious Freedom Summit.

So, what should Congress do about this genocidal, communist regime that has become our top source of imports?

It should stop those imports.

Congress should pass legislation that gradually imposes a prohibitive tariff on all goods produced in the People’s Republic of China. When China stops committing genocide and establishes a government that respects the God-given rights of its people, that prohibitive tariff can be lifted and U.S. trade with China can resume.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor- in-chief of CNSnews.com. To find out more about him, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.