Updated April 18, 2025 at 16:51 PM ET
GUANGZHOU, China — From blenders to bicycles, it could get tough for Americans to buy made-in-China products soon.
That's the message from manufacturers and exporters this week at China's oldest and biggest trade fair — the Canton Expo. Soaring U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods have sown chaos in China's manufacturing heartland. Exporters told NPR that orders to America had been halted, and many are scrambling to find revenue elsewhere.
Mini-oven maker Foshan Zero Point Intelligent Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd., got hit hard. It sells 90% of its products in America, according to sales manager Steven Zhang. Escalating tit-for-tat tariffs this month brought everything to a screeching halt.
"We told our suppliers not to deliver raw materials. Our workers were put on leave," Zhang said. "There was nothing else we could do."
Guangdong Gales Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd. experienced a similar shock, although sales manager Monica Liang said the U.S. accounts for a smaller slice of its business. The company makes blenders and juicers.
"All our [U.S.] customers have stopped their orders," she said. "Everyone is waiting. Nobody knows what's going on and we're all confused."
One customer, she said, demanded that an order of eight containers of goods that were already on a ship at sea, bound for American shores, be canceled.
And Jacky Jiang, with the appliance maker Guangdong Kinwing Electric Industrial Co.,Ltd., said his firm got smashed with an avalanche of cancellations when U.S. tariffs hit 125%. (They are now at a base rate of 145%.)
"The next morning, our customers were calling and emailing, one after the other, to stop their orders," Jiang said.
Last year, the United States imported $438.9 billion worth of Chinese goods, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. China was the United States' third biggest source of imported goods after the European Union and Mexico.
It's impossible to know how big a dent the trade war will put in America's imports from China. Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, says the trend may be to zero.
"The elevated tariffs now levied in both directions are consistent with most bilateral trade ceasing within the space of a couple of years," he wrote in a note on Thursday.
On Thursday, President Trump said he expected to make "a very good deal with China," though he did not offer any specifics. Beijing has earlier called Trump's steep tariffs a "joke."
U.S.-China trade war forces China to recalibrate its strategy
Economists expect a big impact on Chinese growth – even though Chinese exports to the United States only account for around 15% of the country's total exports.
Citi trimmed its forecast for China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year to 4.2% from 4.7%, Goldman Sachs downshifted to 4% from 4.5%, UBS cut its forecast to 3.4% from 4%, and this week Nomura slashed its prediction to 4% from 4.5%.
"Though we expect Beijing to significantly step up its efforts to replace the loss of exports to the U.S. with domestic demand, this will likely be quite challenging," Nomura's Chief China Economist Ting Lu wrote in a note.
At the Canton Fair, companies were trying to figure out their next move.
The Chinese government is encouraging domestic demand, which economists say is low for an economy the size of China's. And the Commerce Ministry has said it will help foreign-facing companies explore local markets. And for some that makes sense.
Zhang Zhengang is a manager at a Tianjin-based bicycle manufacturer. At his booth, there's a wall of kids' push bikes in a rainbow of colors, as well as rugged-looking e-bikes.
"The impact of the tariffs won't be as big as you'd think," he said. "We can exploit the domestic market, the South American market, the European market, as well as Russia and other countries. The global market is huge. There's demand for our products in basically every country."
But Monica Liang, with the maker of juicers and blenders, says pivoting could be challenging.
Juicers, for instance, aren't very popular in China, where she said people prefer hot drinks. Liang said the design of her company's products is not appropriate, either. "They're European-American style – black and steel machines – so for Chinese people they're not very friendly," she said, adding that locals prefer their appliances in pastels.
Her company will instead lean into the other existing markets, like Europe.
"Our factory has been around for 29 years. We don't rely on just one customer or one market," she said.
For Kinwing, all options are on the table.
"We are actively exploring different paths, such as expanding into non-U.S. markets, like South America, Europe and Asia," said Jiang.
"We're also developing other product lines and considering setting up overseas production facilities. For example, we're looking at third-party countries like Mexico, Vietnam, and Indonesia as potential manufacturing bases, which could allow us to take a roundabout route to reach the U.S. market," he said.
Circumventing tariffs by producing or trans-shipping through third countries was prevalent after the first Trump administration began imposing tariffs on China. High tariffs announced this month on places like Vietnam and Thailand cast doubt on that strategy, although Trump suspended them until July.
Jiang said the company boss is in contact with local governments and businesses "to look for different types of policy support and solutions."
At Zero Point, the company that shut down and put workers on leave, Zhang says everyone is holding their breath and hoping for the best.
"In two or three months … if things are really still completely stuck, then we'll think of other ways to cope," he said.
Customers want the company opening production lines abroad, to get around the tariffs, he said, adding that that will take time.
"Manufacturing isn't something you can just change overnight," he said. "For now, we can only wait and see if there are any changes in policy. If there are, we'll make new plans."
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