Driving the news: In statements today, Beijing said it will immediately retaliate if Trump proceeds with a vow yesterday to impose tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese imports, bringing the total to $250 billion. The Chinese have said that, if Trump proceeds next week as threatened, it will retaliate with tariffs on some 5,200 types of U.S. imports worth another $60 billion, for a total of $110 billion.

We previously reported that the trade war with China could last a year or longer. Now experts say the war will be larger and endure for an unknown period of time.

• "My view is that Trump has accelerated and amplified latent anti-trade and anti-globalization populist forces. And I think this represents a systemic break with the past 75 years," says Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 
• "Trump’s successor is unlikely to go back to the postwar model of American leadership of the world economic system along liberal free trade and investment lines," says Hufbauer.
• Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations agrees: "It’s clear we are never going back to the status quo pre-Trump. Congress and the administration are going to need to fundamentally rewrite their relationship on trade, not try to revive the old rules. And the WTO will either need to be refashioned or it will die."

If there’s any chance for a return to the pre-Trump system, it’s this: "[T]he polls suggest that younger American voters are generally quite pro-free trade and see the benefits of globalization," says Alden. "So I think the protectionist moment we are seeing will be shorter rather than longer. But a lot of damage could be done in that short time."

More fatalities: On Monday, more lives were lost as floodwaters swelled and a tornado outbreak caused by Florence's remnants swept across parts of Virginia. The fatalities include a 1-year-old boy, killed when floodwaters ripped him from his mother's arms.

Between the lines:

• The hazardous waste concerns center on everything from Superfund sites to coal ash pits and hog waste lagoons.
• As of noon on Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said 4 hog lagoons had suffered structural damage, another 13 had discharged waste when they were overtopped, and 9 had been inundated.
• At least four power plants that store coal ash have reported some type of breach in containment, which raises the possibility that this byproduct of burning coal has made it into rivers and eventually, water supplies.
• Coal ash contains hazardous heavy metals that are harmful to human health, such as arsenic and mercury,
• One such spill has occurred at the Sutton power plant on Lake Sutton. According to the Washington Post, the coal ash landfill there has lost "more than 2,000 cubic yards of toxic waste, enough to fill more than 150 dump trucks."

By the numbers: Rising rivers are now cresting or will soon crest in many places in North Carolina, with record heights already being recorded.

• The Lumber River at Lumberton, North Carolina, hit a record crest of 22.21 feet, nearly 10 feet above flood stage. Nearby homes are flooded once the river hits 17 feet.
• The Cape Fear River at Fayetteville is forecast to crest at 61.8 feet on Wednesday, shy of a record but well above flood stage, which is 35 feet. Such a reading would also be higher than the river level in the wake of Hurricane Matthew in 2016, considered a benchmark flood for much of eastern North Carolina.

Other rivers are rising more slowly, and the flooding from all these waterways "could last for weeks," warns the National Weather Service.

The rainfall amounts that caused this flooding are staggering, with between 30 and 40 inches falling over a wide swath of the Carolinas.

Go deeper: The ties between Hurricane Florence and climate change