Donald Trump’s tariff warfare has been wreaking havoc in international markets, however amongst exporters in China’s “trinket city” — the japanese metropolis of Yiwu well-known for making all the things from Christmas bushes to Donald Trump marketing campaign caps — the temper is extra of stoic defiance than panic.
Amid authorities invocations of late dictator Mao Zedong which can be supposed to mission nationwide power, Chinese language enterprise individuals on the entrance strains of the trade war mentioned they have been assured their nation would prevail.
“Trump desires to steal a slice of China’s pie,” mentioned exporter Kenny Qi in his small retailer festooned with “Make American Nice Once more” T-shirts in an enormous Yiwu commerce exhibition centre.
However Qi mentioned Trump received a shock when Beijing retaliated with its own 125 per cent tariffs this week. He predicted the US president, whose visage glowered at him from a Maga T-shirt above his desk, would again down “in half a month at most”.
Trump’s new duties on Chinese language items are greater than twice the 60 per cent tariffs he threatened throughout his election marketing campaign — a degree that many economists had on the time thought of a worst-case state of affairs.
Beijing has stepped up its nationalist rhetoric to metal the general public for the financial fallout from a tough decoupling with the US. International ministry spokesperson Mao Ning posted on the social media web site X a video of Mao giving a speech throughout the 1950-53 Korean warfare, when Chinese language troopers fought in opposition to US-led UN forces.
“Regardless of how lengthy this warfare goes to final, we’ll by no means yield, we’ll battle till we utterly triumph,” then-chairman Mao says within the clip.
We’re Chinese language. We aren’t afraid of provocations. We don’t again down. 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/vPgifasYmI
— Mao Ning 毛宁 (@SpoxCHN_MaoNing) April 10, 2025
In one other submit, the spokesperson quoted Mao as saying in 1964 that the “US intimidates sure nations, stopping them from doing enterprise with us. However America is only a paper tiger. Don’t consider in its bluff. One poke, and it’ll burst”.
Beijing has accompanied its retaliatory tariffs with a bunch of different measures, vowing to cut back entry for Hollywood films and warning residents in opposition to travelling to the US or finding out there. In the meantime, state media have pumped out tales about how People are struggling to afford primary requirements. The Communist celebration nationalist tabloid World Instances described one scarcity as an “‘egg disaster’ sweeping the nation”.
“The information says People are already scrambling to purchase eggs, flour and cooking oil,” mentioned Nie Ziqin, who runs a retailer in Yiwu providing Halloween decorations supposed on the market to the US and different nations.
Nie, who got here to Yiwu greater than 20 years in the past aged 16 as a manufacturing unit employee and now runs her personal plant using greater than 100 individuals, admitted the tariff warfare had “shocked and upset” her after many years of doing enterprise with the US.
She mentioned she had refused US prospects’ requests to slash costs after the tariff warfare broke out, despite the fact that cancelled orders have compelled her to put off greater than 10 per cent of her staff.
“Chinese language individuals suppose in another way from foreigners. We lower your expenses, and we will survive on our financial savings for one, two, even three years. Foreigners spend what they earn,” she mentioned, proudly exhibiting off a premium product for the US market — a zombie masks that includes hand-painted blood spatterings.
“We Chinese language will win any protracted warfare. Chinese language persons are hard-working, diligent, and might ‘eat bitterness’,” she mentioned, utilizing a phrase favoured by Chinese language President Xi Jinping.
However whereas producers in Yiwu additionally export to Europe and the growing world, making them comparatively properly positioned to climate commerce warfare with the US, many bigger producers in different elements of China are extra uncovered.
In central China’s Zhengzhou metropolis, the place Apple makes most of its iPhones, many are apprehensive. “Every little thing is regular for now, however China is beneath nice strain,” mentioned a employee on a break from an iPhone meeting line owned by Apple contractor Foxconn.
Apple has increased the number of flights carrying iPhones from India to the US following Donald Trump’s tariff blitz, and staff on the Zhengzhou plant mentioned they anticipated shifts to be lowered.
“I believe the corporate will reduce manufacturing, it might result in much less work,” mentioned the employee.
Foxconn didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark late on Friday.
A salesman at a logistics firm in Zhejiang, the rich coastal province that features Yiwu, mentioned that even when direct commerce with the US was lowered and exporters diversified, the American market would stay necessary.
“It stays the most important market on this planet, and its shopper energy and market scale are unmatched,” the individual mentioned.
In an indication of solidarity between producers in China’s usually cut-throat market, Zhu Yuelai, an Yiwu-based exporter of tenting items, mentioned his business affiliation was attempting to assist massive producers in different elements of the nation who have been extra reliant on the US.
Yiwu producers have been opening their buyer networks, lots of them in growing nations, to these bigger corporations despite the fact that that they had previously seemed down on town’s small and medium-sized exporters, Zhu mentioned.
Whereas many Chinese language companies are reeling from the commerce warfare, Qi, the Maga merchandise maker, dismissed any suggestion his would possibly undergo.
Trump supporters, he mentioned, have been keen to pay any worth for objects bearing the picture of their beloved president — and US suppliers have been making such an enormous revenue on them that they might afford to partially take in the tariff impression.
A Trump baseball cap as an illustration, price solely Rmb7.50 ($1) to provide. Tariffs would possibly elevate that price to Rmb20, however the caps have been being bought for $50 within the US.
“American sellers may even use the tariffs as an excuse to lift the value to $60 — but the additional price will nonetheless be borne by the US shoppers,” Qi mentioned.
With further reporting by Edward White in Shanghai and Chan Ho-him and Gloria Li in Hong Kong
