ON a sweltering spring day, workers at a Christmas tree factory in eastern China rhythmically assembled piles of branches, wiping away sweat as they daubed white-paint snow onto plastic pine needles.
Like countless other companies in the manufacturing powerhouse of Zhejiang province, its products are geared largely towards export – a sector freshly menaced by US President Donald Trump’s roiling of the global economy and increasingly brutal China tariffs.
On Tuesday, the Trump raised levies on Chinese goods to 104%, before increasing them to 125% the next day, later clarifying the cumulative figure at 145%.
“At the beginning, there was some pessimism in the industry,” said Jessica Guo, the factory head.
“But in the last two days, we are more united, that is, we feel we cannot be bullied like this. We are willing to get through this difficult phase with the country.”
The Chinese government is in fighting mode too, on Friday increasing its own retaliatory duties to 125%.
The tit-for-tat could reduce US-China trade in goods by 80%, the World Trade Organisation said this week.
There are no US orders currently on the production line in Guo’s factory – they have been suspended or remain unconfirmed.
Other local Christmas tree makers have also been hit, she said, but not as badly as in Guangdong province, where some factories’ production can be completely taken up by one large US client.
“Really, over the past few years ... we have hardly come across any American customers,” she said as she strode past stacked boxes stamped with addresses in Guatemala and Chile.
“We have already slowly broken away from our dependence on the US market, and started to develop other markets.”
Fifty minutes away, at a smaller factory specialising in solar powered plastic gadgets, saleswoman Cassie said only 20% of her customers were American – down from 80% pre-pandemic.
“At the start ... some of our US customers said we could take (the rise) on together ... But later it rose ridiculously – and no one could take on that,” said Cassie.
Behind her on a display shelf, a bobbing Trump statue stood alongside a ‘Dancing Queen’ Elizabeth II and a jiggling ‘Surfer Dude’.
“Now we are in a wait-and-see state to see what decisions Trump will make next,” she said, adding they might redirect some US products elsewhere.
In the meantime, work continues.
Whirrs and clicks filled the air as workers passed multi-coloured plastic parts through machines, each process carried out methodically, in mere seconds, over and over again.
Cassie showed AFP boxes full of Trump figurines bound for Europe, one hand pointing, the other with fingers crossed behind his back.
“I think he shouldn’t be so crazy,” she said. “Him adding tariffs on us doesn’t really have any benefits for them.”
Most vendors at Yiwu’s wholesale market AFP approached said they had diverse client bases, straddling South America, the Middle East and South-East Asia.
“If the trade war escalates ... We should look at it with a steady attitude,” veteran trader Wang Xuxue said at her booth decked out with capybara plushies and Barbie purses.
Many will just develop new products for other countries.
“The Chinese people are pretty united,” said Wang.
“(We) are more hardworking, more thrifty ... We’re not afraid of him fighting a price war – we’re all very confident.” — AFP
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