FRONTLINE and NPR team up to trace how a decades-old trade relationship between the United States and China turned into an open economic conflict under President Trump. Reporters on both sides of the Pacific interview administration officials, trade negotiators, and factory owners caught in the crossfire of tariffs on steel, soybeans, and electronics. The film traces Trump's long-standing grievances about Chinese trade practices back through his business career, then follows how advisers like Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro turned that instinct into policy. Chinese officials and businesspeople describe how Beijing calculated its retaliation, while American farmers and manufacturers explain what tariffs cost them in real numbers. The reporting moves between Washington negotiating rooms and factory floors in China, showing how a fight framed as a battle between two governments lands on workers and companies who had no vote in either country. It ends with the trade war unresolved, a preview of a rivalry that would outlast the administration that started it.