It's possible, but the argument that Starbucks/Google shifting sales from the UK to Ireland implies that the United States is playing accounting tricks with imports and exports is non sequitur. And the implicit assertion that if all countries were playing tricks, they must be playing it equally enough to cancel each other out is also not valid without providing additional supporting evidence.

The article provides an estimate that 1/3rd of Chinese imports were from China itself. I have never heard any kind of claim of that magnitude leveled against the present United States.