Exports made up one-third of China’s economic growth last year. Export numbers are hard for the regime to forge as they have to match other countries’ imports.
Li, a garment exporter in southern China, said the United States’ steep tariffs have dealt a devastating blow to his business.
The business owner from Guangzhou Province said his orders from the United States “evaporated” as the levies escalated.
Li is not alone. Most Chinese exporters are in the same boat. On social media platforms in China, they discuss their dilemma. A few said they were immune from the impact of U.S. tariffs owing to their irreplaceable products.
These exporters reported that U.S. orders formed the majority of their business—and were the most lucrative. Without the American market, no other region, including Europe, can fill the void.
Exports had been among the few bright spots during China’s bumpy economic recovery since late 2022, when the regime ended its strict COVID-19 lockdown measures. Now it’s hit hard by tariffs.
Beijing’s official economic data show that China’s economy has still been growing, albeit at a slower pace. Some experts dispute these figures—they say China’s economy is already in recession, and U.S. tariffs may make things a lot worse.
“China’s in a real problem period,” Rod Martin, founder and CEO of Martin Capital, told The Epoch Times.
Beijing will have trouble backing down from its standoff with the United States, he said, because Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping “has clearly created his whole persona around being the leader who can stand up to America.”
Given the irreplaceable nature of the U.S. consumer market in China’s export-driven economy, Martin said, Beijing will “have to make a deal at some point, or this recession does turn into a depression.”
William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, an economic think tank based in California, said Xi will likely subsidize Chinese exporters at the cost of further increasing deficits of heavily indebted local governments.
The Chinese regime can probably keep exporters afloat for about six months to a year if it doesn’t resolve the trade war with the United States, Lee projected.
By Terri Wu
