Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said it’s nonsense to think President Donald Trump’s policies will land the United States in a trade war.

 “We are in a trade war. We have been for decades,” he told CNBC early Friday.

“The only difference is that our troops are finally coming to the rampart,” he said.

“We didn't end up with a trade deficit accidentally. We ended up with a trade deficit because of the way we negotiated treaties. And because of the determination of other countries who don't agree with the academics, who are desperately trying to have the trade surplus with us,” he said.

“The fact is that our trade deficit overall is about $500 billion a year. And quite miraculously, that also equals the net trade surplus of the rest of the world. It's not inherent in free trade that one country has to absorb all the net exports of the rest of the world,” Ross said.

Ross explained that trade deficits — the difference between imports and exports — matter.

"If trade deficits are good, why is China so pleased that they run a huge trade surplus?" he asked. "It's perfectly obvious that if China hadn't been such a huge net-exporter it never would have grown at the rate that it did," he said.

An investor and businessman who made his billions advising bankruptcies and restructuring flailing companies, Ross was No. 20 in Newsmax's 100 Most Influential Business Leaders in America.

Meanwhile, Trump is expected to sign executive orders aimed at identifying abuses that are causing massive U.S. trade deficits and clamping down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports, according to his top trade officials.

Ross said that one of the orders directs his department and the U.S. Trade Representative to conduct a major review of the causes of U.S. trade deficits, including "currency misalignment," Reuters reported.

(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).