American lives don't depend on those imports though.

Are you serious right now lol? Do you honestly think that our imports from China are simply iPhones and the cheap toys you buy at WalMart? A huge amount of our imports are used every day in the supply chain by multiple employment sectors across the country that employ tens of millions of Americans, supply chains that can't just be adjusted nearly-overnight if we decided to stop importing from China. It isn't a coincidence that Trump instructed his staff to explore rejoining the TPP almost immediately after meeting with Republican Congressmen/women from Midwestern states that heavily depend on imports from China. While it sounds good on paper to say "they need us more than we need them, we can cut off China and import from other countries because they buyer holds the power" it doesn't change the fact that if we decided to actually go through with that it would plunge our economy into a deep recession simply because of how many employment sectors are deeply integrated with the imports we get to China. We'd fall into recession far quicker than it would take to completely modify our existing supply chain.