Economists continue to warn that U.S. President Donald Trump’s steep new tariffs will cause prices to soar for a wide range of imported goods. Many building and construction materials, they warn, are imported from Canada — while a long list of fruits and vegetables enter in the United States from Mexico.
A variety of products are manufactured in Mainland China, which may face some of the steepest tariffs of all.
In an article published on April 30, the BBC’s Linda Bicker reports that Mainland China is looking to beef up its relationships with other trading partners in response to Trump’s trade war — and may not be as reliant on the U.S. as some people think.
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Yiwu, China-based toy seller Hu Tianqiang told the BBC, “We don’t care about sales to the United States…. Other countries have money too.”
According to Bicker, that type of “defiant” tone isn’t hard to find in the People’s Republic of China these days.
“That defiance has become a familiar theme in the world’s second-biggest economy, which is bracing itself for another turbulent Trump presidency,” Bicker explains. “Beijing, which has been repeatedly telling the world that the U.S. was bullying countries into trade negotiations, has not backed down yet from the trade war. The propaganda online has ratcheted up, applauding Chinese innovation and diplomacy in contrast to the uncertainty unleashed by Trump.”
Bicker continues, “On the country’s highly controlled social media, there are plenty of posts echoing the leadership’s promise that China will keep fighting.”
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Hu Tianqiang told the BBC that around 20-30 percent of his profits were coming from the U.S., but that is changing thanks to Trump’s trade war.
Tianqiang argued, “We don’t care about that 20-30 percent. We now sell mostly to South America and the Middle East. We are not lacking money, we are rich.”
Chinese businessman Lin Xiupeng, according to Bicker, “says he has noticed the shift away from American buyers in his last 10 years in the toy business.”
Xiupeng told the BBC, “A few days ago, the shop next to us had an order from a U.S. client. It’s worth more than one million yuan. But because of tariffs, the shop owner decided to cancel it.”
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Read the BBC’s full article at this link.
