Everyone has forgotten about why Donald Trump can't win a trade war with China

In all the chaos of markets convulsing and tariffs rising, it's been easy to forget the main objectives of the US's trade war with China.
And in doing so, it's easy to forget that those objectives are at odds with one another.
On one hand you have USTR Robert Lighthizer and his stated aim of turning China into a market-based economy. On the other hand you have Donald Trump, a populist obsessed with forcing China to buy more goods — a market distorting demand.
This inconsistency has serious