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Beijing doesn't seem too worried about looking elsewhere for more chicken, pork and sorghum and – at the same time – it knows it is whacking the US president right in his heartland.Globally, all of this has analysts worried.

The problem is that supply chains have become so international, components in any given product could be sourced from all corners of the planet.So, when the ripples of economic distress start spreading from country to country, it could have potentially catastrophic consequences for all trade.Most concerning is that the world's two greatest economies are now at each other's throats with no indication that either is preparing to backdown.

Just take the timing of Beijing's announcement.The Chinese government revealed its promised "resolute countermeasures" to Trump's latest tariffs in a written statement from the finance ministry at 18:00 local time (10:00 GMT), on a Friday night, which is also a public holiday.

The timing could mean several things.

1. It wanted to somewhat bury the news at home, so as to not spook people too much.Over the last week, as part of a series on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, we traced the path of migrants from Turkey to Bulgaria to the rest of Europe - the “biggest growth route” for those travelling into Europe, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory - in search of what it will really take to “smash the gangs”.

When we talk about smuggling gangs, we tend to focus on the end of the process, such as the UK's relations with France, and on the movement of people across the English Channel, but our route marks the start of the journey: it’s where migrants first enter Europe.Along the way, we spoke to migrants who shared their complicated reasons for putting their lives in the hands of people smugglers. What soon became clear was the sheer magnitude of the government’s task.

The crowded shopping bazaar in the Istanbul district of Esenyurt is popular with the thousands of Syrian refugees who live in the region. “You can see Syrian shops here,” Husam, a Syrian refugee, told us as he showed us around after Friday prayers. “Many were not here in 2015. You have falafel, shawarma - many shops for Syrian food. It was a comfortable, safe place for Syrians.” But now the mood is darkening.“In the past few years it’s not safe any more,” he explains. “There are groups of racist people who don’t like refugees. On public transportation you cannot speak comfortably in Arabic on your phone. People are attacked [for] speaking Arabic.”