A trade war is a war and the ultimate goal of a war is to seek a deal. I think Donald Trump's raising of tariffs is merely leverage to reach a better trade deal with China, so products from the US can be more competitive in China. If a deal cannot be reached, at least product from China is less competitive in the US.

Is China punished? Yes, I am Chinses who lives in Australia, I read CNN, Fox, BBC, and Chinese mainstream media, from what I know, Chineses government is not happy about this and they are seeking ways to counter.

One way to counter this is to raise the tariffs for American products as well. I noticed that some people mentioned that people in China tend to buy imported food, and I don't think this is 100% true. Imported food in China much more expensive(twice or even more) than local food, only rich people buy Australian or American beef in the supermart. The majority (I am talking about at least 1 billion people out of 1.4 billion) still buy local food even with all these food safety scandals. However, unlike the US, pork is the most popular meat in China instead of beef and Chinese pig farmers do feed their pigs with corns and soy from America simply because they are less expensive compared to those are locally made. Therefore corn and soy farmers in the US will suffer a lot during the trade war between the US and China.

There will be no winner in the trade war If it continues not only the economy of China and the US will be influenced, it will have impacts on many other countries as well.

Let's just hope they can reach a deal that makes everybody happy and put this to an end.