US tariffs bring stalled shipments and uncertainty for Chinese exporters

GUANGZHOU, China (AP) — Exporters at China’s largest trade fair spoke on Wednesday of stalled shipments and lower sales forecasts due to the ongoing trade war with the United States.

Zhang Haiyun, overseas sales director for Airdog, an air purifier maker based in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, said her company has halted shipments to the US since President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs of 145% on all products imported from China.

“Basically, there are no freight companies willing to take orders because no one knows what will happen to the tariffs when the goods arrive,” Zhang told The Associated Press from her booth at the Canton Fair, which is China’s largest and oldest trade event.

Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on China, and essentially all other US trading partners, loomed heavily at the biannual fair, which has been held since 1957.

While the US has postponed the implementation of most tariffs for three months, the duties on Chinese products remain in place pending a trade deal between the two nations. Beijing has retaliated with tariffs on US goods that total 125%.

Zhang said the reciprocal tariffs were enacted just as her company’s business in the US had started growing. Airdog sells various models of air purifiers in the US and more than 90 other countries and regions around the world, with a focus on developing countries that have boosted trade with China under Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative.

She said her company was going to wait and see how things develop before moving production to other Southeast Asian countries.

Many Chinese companies have opened factories abroad since Trump’s first term in office in an attempt to avoid reciprocal tariffs between China and the US.

But in his new round of tariff announcements, Trump targeted Southeast Asian nations with high duties, including 49% tariffs on imports from Cambodia and 46% duties on goods from Vietnam.

China’s President Xi Jinping is this week touring Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia, and making a case for free trade.

Exporters across both China and Southeast Asia have expressed concern about the tariffs’ impact on production lines and supply chains.

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