It is private individuals engaged in mutually beneficial transactions.

Yes, by giving them our money and allowing them to benefit from our money. Which we shouldn't be doing if the other country is hostile.

should have the right to starve a people because they do not like its government.

We aren't starving anyone. Do you see the US going in and firebombing their crops? No. Can the Cubans not grow their own food? Can they not trade with other shithole countries like them for their own food?

that is hardly an excuse for terrorizing a population because your criminal elites do not like a government.

LOL you think not engaging in trade is terrorism. LOL no. The United States has a right to withhold trade from anyone it wants to.

you 'cheated' in industrialization because of British investment.

That's not the same. US companies didn't just give China loans, when we went to them, they were NOTHING. We taught them everything from scratch. China brought nothing to the table except for cheap labor. By contrast, the US in the 1800s was a peer power with the UK which quickly surpassed it thanks to our own development. We invented the cotton gin. We invented ironclad warships. We invented the light bulb and electricity. The US wasn't some 3rd world country like China.

Was it a mistake to develop China? Absolutely. It was one of the dumbest things in human history: we took a country we knew to be an enemy, which was too poor to be a threat, and we gave it everything it needed to massively develop and become a threat. And now we have to deal with the mess that caused by trying to pull it back before it gets worse.