I’m penning this article at this time due to the increasing frequency of reports in the media and commercials decrying a trade war and emotionally pleading for its victims. Phil Bredesen even aired a political ad claiming Jack Daniels and other Tennessee products will be hurt in a trade war, costing Tennesseans jobs.

“We’ve been in a trade war for 30 years.” The only difference now, he said, is that we’re deciding to fight back. “Don’t tell me about starting a trade war,” stated a former Steel executive, now a Trump advisor, “The Chinese have been perpetrating a trade war on us since 1995.”

The U.S. is under attack. U.S. manufacturing has reached a critical stage from 2000 and today because of what China has done. The Chinese have been perpetrating a trade war on us since 1995 when they reevaluated their currency and dropped it by 80 percent to gain a major currency advantage in devaluing their currency to promote their own domestic growth and own domestic manufacturing growth.

There’s even some ridiculous speculation that “Trump’s trade war with China” could lead to a real shooting war. Think about, China needs to sell us its low-priced goods at Walmart, and we need to buy them. Neither of us could afford a shooting war. The Chinese navy’s aggression in the South China Sea is another matter, but I don’t see any war developing there either.

China has been stealing U.S. intellectual property for years with no consequences either. Whatever else one might think of President Trump’s actions, he is confronting China about its unfair trade practices and theft of American intellectual property when too many others shy away from the truth for fear of Chinese reprisal.

The leftist Los Angeles Times, no fan of Donald Trump proclaimed, “China’s repeated and unashamed theft of intellectual property has been especially egregious and damaging.”

Sanctions are a scare tactic folks, designed to motivate those countries that have taken advantage of the U.S. for years into action, rectifying this imbalance.

Pump the brakes on all the hyperbole and exaggeration.

The 24-year-old NAFTA deal with Mexico and Canada has been torn up and replaced with a deal much more favorable to the U.S. than the “jobs-killing disaster that was NAFTA," as President Trump puts it.

Canada agreed late Sunday, Sept. 30 to join the trade deal that the United States and Mexico reached last month, meeting negotiators’ self-imposed midnight deadline designed to allow the current Mexican president to sign the accord on his final day in office and giving President Trump a big win on trade.

The new agreement, the officials said, represents a “template for the Trump administration playbook for future trade deals” designed to boost worker earnings and strengthen the American economy.

What Trump is doing with our allies is getting them to finally stop talking about doing something and do something.

For 15 years, the OECD and the global steel industry has put warnings out and said, “Hey, this has got to stop.” But nothing ever gets done — the Chinese make promises, and they don’t do anything. They just keep getting more and more and more capacity. President Trump’s just saying enough is enough.

There are way too many well-intentioned economists and politicians and businesspeople out there who believe that protectionism is always a mistake," Mad Money host Jim Cramer said. "They don't understand that we've been on the receiving end of a trade war for ages."

Former Alaska Gov. and V.P. candidate Sarah Palin wrote, “President Trump is responding to a trade war-not starting one-he inherited by pursuing a ‘level playing field’ via tariffs.

“POTUS isn’t starting any trade war… it’s been raging for decades and we keep losing,” wrote Palin. “People MUST understand our nation’s solvency and sovereignty are at stake here.”

President Trump inherited this trade war, and he’s an atypical politician determined to actually do something to fix the problem. The Trump Doctrine involves finally enforcing rules and standards to level the playing field — which proves the wisdom of private sector perspective brought to the White House.

With the seemingly never-ending trade imbalance, remember the old adage: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. It’s time for new thinking in Washington.