There are three ways the U.S.-China trade war could end. Two would be bad for America.

President Trump is trying to achieve a massive trade deal with China, something no other president has been able to do. It was always going to be tough. A week ago, a deal appeared close. Now prospects seem bleak.

Trump massively escalated the trade war Friday by hiking tariffs on many Chinese imports. The president now has 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese products. (While he likes to claim China pays that bill, the truth is U.S. consumers pay it.) The stock market has shed about 2 percent, and China’s top trade negotiator is leaving Washington with no deal, as his country prepares to strike back.

Negotiations are almost always messy, but this is starting to look like mud wrestling in a hurricane. The key question that everyone from the trading floors of Wall Street to the Iowa soybean farms is asking is: How does this end?

View the complete May 10 article by Heather Long on The Washington Post website here.