At boisterous Canton Fair, China’s exporters get taste of life after US
Tariffs and tensions have made US buyers a rare sight at China’s premier trade fair – are exporters ready for a sea change?
As a reporter who has attended the Canton Fair – China’s oldest and largest trade exhibition – on many occasions, I can say with confidence there’s something very different about the current session.
Walking through the exhibition halls, the near-capacity crowds came as a surprise. It felt like the largest number of foreign buyers I’d ever seen at a fair, especially as rapidly intensifying tariffs from the US were throwing the established trade order into disarray.
I could tell that everyone, from organisers and exporters to taxi drivers and hotel staff, was going all-out to provide premium service to potential overseas buyers.
More than 200,000 of them had come to the fair, seemingly from every corner of the world. They came dressed up and dressed down, some wearing suits and others in shorts and flip-flops.
And not all spoke English, the lingua franca of past sessions. Frequently an attendee from Latin America or Central Asia would apologetically admit they would prefer Spanish, Russian or Arabic – and someone with fluency in their chosen language would appear in minutes.
Yes, people from practically everywhere could be found, with one notable exception: the country whose global tariff regime had put so many on edge. Of course, American buyers had not completely disappeared, but they certainly seemed an endangered species compared to previous fairs.