Vessel loaded with U.S. sorghum headed to China, then Spain, now Singapore

It's rare that a perfect illustration of a trade war comes along. But a ship full of an obscure crop called sorghum has become a token of what can happen.

The ship has been zigging and zagging through the ocean for weeks, trying to navigate an ever-changing trade landscape as the U.S. and China exchange tit-for-tat tariffs.

As Beijing and Washington heat up their rhetoric and actions against each other, the circuitous path of an 80,000-tonne dry bulk carrier demonstrates some of the things that go wrong when countries throw themselves into the path of shipments that make up global trade.

On March 18, bulk carrier RB Eden left the port of Corpus Christi, Texas, loaded with 70,223 tonnes of sorghum, bound for Shanghai where the load was destined to become animal feed.

But the swirling winds of a global trade war were about to throw the vessel wildly off course...

This has been excerpted from the 25 May 2018 edition of CBC News.