SWAMPSCOTT – If you think the trade deficit between the United States and China is a relatively recent phenomenon, local author Eric Jay Dolin will get you to think again.Dolin said his latest book, “When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs and Money in the Age of Sail,” highlights the parallel of the current trade deficit and the one that started hundreds of years ago between the two countries.During a presentation Monday evening at the Swampscott Public Library, Dolin said media coverage of the relationship between the U.S. and China prompted him to write the book.?Every day we are inundated with news that dissects and analyzes the complex relationship with the U.S. and China,” said Dolin, a Marblehead resident and graduate of Brown University who has a master?s degree in environmental management from Yale and a doctorate from MIT. “I wanted to tell the story of what happened when the countries first met.”Using paintings, drawings and images of artifacts from the 18th and 19th century, Dolin described how the U.S. first created a trade deficit by importing more goods from China than it exported.Though many American merchants became millionaires selling opium to smugglers, China didn?t buy as much sea otter pelts, sandalwood and ginseng from the U.S. as Americans bought tea, silk and porcelain from China. Dolin said the deficit is still there today because the “vast, limitless market for America?s goods is not realized.”Dolin?s overview of the book began in the years following the American Revolution, when the U.S. was first able to trade with China, until about the mid-19th century when, as he described, “the drama began to die out.”He discussed America?s relatively minor, yet “legally and morally indefensible” role in the opium trade that crippled China?s bank account, as it did its citizens, and he touched upon the trafficking of coolies, or manual laborers, that rivaled the slave trade with Africa.Dolin?s references to famous wealthy merchants in Salem and Marblehead like Elias Hasket Derby (of Derby Wharf fame) kept the presentation local and his detailed quips made it humorous.When talking about the demand for sea cucumber that the Chinese ate in soup to increase sexual prowess, Dolin said, “In China here are a huge number of items that were eaten to enhance sexual prowess. I don?t know if they had more fun ? but one of these days I?m going to try to eat some in soup.”For more information on Dolin?s books and to read an excerpt of “When America Met China,” go to www.ericjaydolin.com.Kait Taylor can be reached at [email protected].