US-China trade war ‘hurting American companies in China’ as tariffs cut into demand
- More than half of respondents to an American business survey say higher duties are lowering appetite for their products
- 42 per cent say they are experiencing higher manufacturing costs
Three-quarters of US companies operating in China said the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing was hurting their business, according to a new survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and its sister organisation in Shanghai.
More than half of respondents said that higher tariffs imposed by both countries were cutting into demand for their products and 42 per cent said they were experiencing higher manufacturing costs. Of those surveyed, 38 per cent said they were seeing higher sales prices for their products.
The survey comes with the US having raised tariffs to 25 per cent on an additional US$200 billion of Chinese imports and preparing to add tariffs to nearly all remaining Chinese-made goods as soon as July. China is set to put additional retaliatory tariffs in place on June 1.
“The negative impact of tariffs is clear and hurting the competitiveness of American companies in China,” AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai said in a joint statement.
The survey interviewed 239 member companies between May 16 and 20, with nearly 62 per cent of the respondents coming from manufacturing-related industries.
The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a trade war since last year, placing tariffs on each other’s goods and ratcheting up the rhetoric. US President Donald Trump is trying to force China to change years of trade and industrial policies that he claims are unfair.