To inflict more pain on China, the Trump administration last week raised the ante in its trade war. It now promises that the next round of tariffs, on $200 billion in imports from China, will be 25 percent instead of the 10 percent announced earlier. President Trump exhorts his supporters that tariffs “mean jobs and great wealth.”

If jobs and wealth are the metric for “winning the trade war,” China, not America, will emerge the victor. China will win not because of one-party rule, although it certainly helps President Xi Jinping weather difficulties caused by trade tensions. Rather, China will win because it is playing this game more skillfully. The tariffs imposed by the United States will mostly be paid by American companies and consumers, while China is retaliating with moves that soften the blow for companies in China, including those that are foreign-owned.

To “win” a trade war on these terms, the United States would have to impose tariffs that somehow hurt the Chinese economy so badly that its leaders improve their treatment of American intellectual property, a longtime demand by American trade negotiators. The health of China’s economy depends on exporting to the United States, so, the thinking goes, the Chinese government will capitulate to American demands.

This strategy is certain to backfire.

First, about 60 percent of China’s exports to the United States are produced at factories owned by non-Chinese companies. Many of them produce customized inputs for American manufacturers, such as computer routers, LED fixtures and boat motors. That means the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration that are directed at China actually affect many American (and European) companies that own factories in China.