JINHUA: 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 Donald Trump’s roiling of the global economy and increasingly brutal China tariffs.
On Tuesday, the US president raised levies on Chinese goods to 104 percent, before increasing them to 125 percent the next day, later clarifying the cumulative figure at 145 percent.
“At the beginning, there was some pessimism in the industry,“ Jessica Guo, the factory head, told AFP.
“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 percent.
The tit-for-tat could reduce US-China trade in goods by 80 percent, the World Trade Organization said this week.
The effects are already being seen on Guo’s unseasonal winter wonderland of a factory floor.
There are no US orders currently on the production line — they have been suspended or remain unconfirmed.
Other local Christmas tree makers have also been hit, she said, but not as badly as in southern Guangdong province, where some factories’ production can be completely taken up by one large US client.
Zhejiang factory owners tend to have a broader, more recently developed client base, according to Guo.
“Really, over the past few years… we have hardly come across any American customers,“ she said as she strode past walls of 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.”
‘Wait and see’
Fifty minutes away, at a smaller factory specialising in solar powered plastic gadgets, saleswoman Cassie said only 20 percent of her customers were American — down from 80 percent pre-pandemic.
Recently she too has had suspensions or cancellations, citing the tariffs.
“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 abroad or domestically.
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.”
‘Steady attitude’
The apex of Zhejiang’s light industry prowess is the city of Yiwu’s wholesale market, one of the world’s largest.
A warren of tens of thousands of stalls sells millions of items, from a panoply of electronics to body glitter, toy guns and astroturf.
Most vendors AFP approached said they had diverse client bases, straddling South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
“If the trade war escalates… We should look at it with a steady attitude,“ veteran trader Wang Xuxue told AFP at her booth decked out with capybara plushies and Barbie purses.
Many will just develop new products for other countries, she said.
Nearby, a costume shop had arranged a display of silicon masks — a wall of popular villains that included Freddy Kruger, Pennywise the Clown, various werewolves and demons — and Donald Trump.
“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.”
