Donald Trump’s tariff struggle has been wreaking havoc in world markets, however amongst exporters in China’s “trinket town” — the japanese metropolis of Yiwu well-known for making all the things from Christmas timber to Donald Trump marketing campaign caps — the temper is extra of stoic defiance than panic.
Amid authorities invocations of late dictator Mao Zedong which are supposed to challenge nationwide power, Chinese language enterprise folks on the entrance strains of the commerce struggle mentioned they have been assured their nation would prevail.
“Trump wants to steal a slice of China’s pie,” mentioned exporter Kenny Qi in his small retailer festooned with “Make American Great Again” T-shirts in an unlimited Yiwu commerce exhibition centre.
However Qi mentioned Trump bought a shock when Beijing retaliated with its personal 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 stage that many economists had on the time thought-about a worst-case situation.
Beijing has stepped up its nationalist rhetoric to metal the general public for the financial fallout from a tough decoupling with the US. Overseas ministry spokesperson Mao Ning posted on the social media web site X a video of Mao giving a speech in the course of the 1950-53 Korean struggle, when Chinese language troopers fought in opposition to US-led UN forces.
“No matter how long this war is going to last, we’ll never yield, we’ll fight until we completely triumph,” then-chairman Mao says within the clip.
We’re Chinese language. We’re not afraid of provocations. We don’t again down. 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/vPgifasYmI
— Mao Ning 毛宁 (@SpoxCHN_MaoNing) April 10, 2025
In one other publish, the spokesperson quoted Mao as saying in 1964 that the “US intimidates certain countries, stopping them from doing business with us. But America is just a paper tiger. Don’t believe in its bluff. One poke, and it’ll burst”.
Beijing has accompanied its retaliatory tariffs with a number of different measures, vowing to scale back entry for Hollywood motion pictures 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 get together nationalist tabloid World Occasions described one scarcity as an “‘egg crisis’ sweeping the nation”.
“The news says Americans are already scrambling to buy 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 facility employee and now runs her personal plant using greater than 100 folks, admitted the tariff struggle had “shocked and disappointed” her after many years of doing enterprise with the US.
She mentioned she had refused US clients’ requests to slash costs after the tariff struggle broke out, though cancelled orders have pressured her to put off greater than 10 per cent of her staff.
“Chinese people think differently from foreigners. We save money, and we can survive on our 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 will win any protracted war. Chinese people are hard-working, diligent, and can ‘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 struggle 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 nervous. “Everything is normal for now, but China is under great pressure,” mentioned a employee on a break from an iPhone meeting line owned by Apple contractor Foxconn.
Apple has elevated the variety of flights carrying iPhones from India to the US following Donald Trump’s tariff blitz, and workers on the Zhengzhou plant mentioned they anticipated shifts to be decreased.
“I think the company will cut production, it may lead to 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 decreased and exporters diversified, the American market would stay essential.
“It remains the largest market in the world, and its consumer power 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 trade affiliation was attempting to assist giant 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 though they’d up to now appeared down on town’s small and medium-sized exporters, Zhu mentioned.
Whereas many Chinese language companies are reeling from the commerce struggle, Qi, the Maga merchandise maker, dismissed any suggestion his would possibly endure.
Trump supporters, he mentioned, have been prepared to pay any worth for gadgets 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 soak up the tariff affect.
A Trump baseball cap for example, value solely Rmb7.50 ($1) to supply. Tariffs would possibly increase that value to Rmb20, however the caps have been being offered for $50 within the US.
“American sellers could even use the tariffs as an excuse to raise the price to $60 — yet the extra cost will still be borne by the US consumers,” Qi mentioned.
With further reporting by Edward White in Shanghai and Chan Ho-him and Gloria Li in Hong Kong
