In an extraordinary new article, the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf attempts to delude his readers as to the nature of the U.S.-China conflict. Contending that the Trump administration, not Chinese President Xi Jinping, is responsible for declining U.S.-China relations, Wolf suggests that America is the economic, political, and military agitator.

Wolf’s absurdity begins with his deployment of the old anti-American trope that America invents enemies to distract its people. He claims that “For the U.S., [China] can be the ideological, military and economic enemy many need. Here at last is a worthwhile opponent.”