If the state of the trade war didn't resolve, a global recession is almost inevitable. Trade will sharply decline, inflation will be rampant, companies will layoff workers, consumption will decline further and it's a cycle.
What does Trump want? He wants different things from different countries, but what he wants from all of them is to dump their dollar reserves and decrease their interest rates so that their currency appreciates and the US becomes more competitive in trade. This is what his administration calls "currency manipulation".
Either he will get that, or he will drive the world into one of the worst recessions we've ever seen.
Unlike the Cuban missile crisis, it's not state vs. state standoff. It's state vs. the world