Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump routinely talks about how his predecessors' trade deals were "the worst," usually before pledging as he did in last month's State of the Union to reverse "decades of calamitous trade policies" in order to bring back jobs, expand agricultural markets and sell more US-made cars abroad.

He's clearly taken care of the first part by upending a number of trade relationships the United States has around the world. But so far, there's been relatively little progress toward his goal of revitalizing struggling American industries and cutting US dependence on the rest of the world's products.

Despite Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as billions in consumer goods from China, Americans are importing more than they're selling abroad. The trade deficit has widened by more than $100 billion since Trump took office and hit a 10-year high in 2018, according to data released by the Census Bureau on Wednesday.

"The administration made it seem like a quick tweak in some trade agreements would bring back the manufacturing workforce, but the problems have to do with technological change," said Phil Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs who served as a senior economist for trade under President George W. Bush. "That's an impossible thing to fix with aggressive trade policy."

The President promised as a candidate and since taking office that he would use his deal-making skills to extract better deals from other nations, including allies.