The United States and China continue to head toward a possible trade war, as recent negotiations to bridge the gap between the two countries ended inconclusively. Donald Trump's administration has demanded far-reaching Chinese concessions to reduce the bilateral trade deficit, address Beijing's mercantilist trade practices, and open up key sectors of the Chinese economy to greater foreign competition.

The White House has underscored its demands by applying sanctions on steel, aluminum and a host of other imports and restrictions on Chinese investment. Beijing has responded in kind, imposing tariffs on an array of American goods from frozen pork to aluminum scrap and offering only minimal concessions.

The consequences of a full-on confrontation between the world's two largest national economies would be quite serious across the globe. But the Trump administration is not entirely wrong to be disrupting the U.S.-China trade relationship. Rather, the story here is a familiar one in the Trump era: The president is blending a halfway-sound insight on global affairs with deeply counterproductive execution.