New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman praised the Trump administration on Thursday for taking action against China on trade, though he said he never thought a tariff strategy was the right move.

"My feeling was the president was right," Friedman said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "The structure of U.S.-China trade had changed, and the game had to be called, in this sense."

China went from being a low-income nation to middle-income through hard work and "nonreciprocal trade arrangements" such as forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft, said Friedman, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and best-selling author.

"If we use that from poverty to middle income to grow from middle-income to high-income, all of the partners would be crazy," he added. "I was a fan of getting tough."