Business
Chinatown Business Owners Brace for Impact of Trump’s Ongoing Trade War With China
The U.S.-China trade war has been ratcheting up for nearly a month now.
President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on almost all U.S. trading partners April 2 in what he declared “Liberation Day,” with China becoming the main target.
Taxes on Chinese imports are currently sitting at 145%.
And Beijing retaliated with tariffs of its own, taxing American goods at 125%.
Local shop owners in Chicago’s Chinatown community are bracing for the consequences of the ongoing feud. Some people have resorted to hoarding everyday essentials.
“We’ve started importing a lot in the last two weeks to deal with the tariff increases, so we’re stocking up on what goods we can for now,” Grace Grocery Store owner Leo Li said through an interpreter.
Li opened his shop nine years ago shortly after moving to Chicago.
He estimates about 95% of his products are Chinese imports, which range from daily necessities like snacks and toiletries to gift shop items for tourists.
“We’ve found that a lot of wholesale companies or importers are also facing shortages right now because they don’t know to what extent tariffs will increase in the future, and what the impact will be then,” Li said.
Li said that while he and his customers are both anticipating the tariffs to make daily purchases more expensive, his own prices will only increase slightly so as not to hurt his loyal customer base.
In addition to worrying about how tariffs will affect business, Li finds himself defending his situation to friends and family back home.
“People back home are having a negative image of the U.S. right now because they think America is being unfriendly to China,” Li said. “As an American immigrant, sometimes I feel like I have to defend myself. It’s making it difficult to communicate with people back home because I can’t give them a comprehensive image of what’s going on.”
Tariffs implemented by the Trump administration will likely shoot up prices and affect more than just the shop owners in Chinatown, considering much of the fresh produce in grocery stores — like bananas, avocados and coffee — is internationally sourced.
It could also put a strain on other industries like toy manufacturing, farming and steel.
And domestic and global stock markets took a downward turn following the back-and-forth trade war.
The whiplash and uncertainty makes Sea Cucumber City manager Aina Lei a little nervous.
“If the tariffs go up, our prices will surely go up a little,” Lei said via a translator. “The problem is the middlemen are raising prices, and it has a big impact on businesses as a whole.”
Sea Cucumber City sells traditional Chinese medicines, dried seafoods and candies.
Lei got the idea to open the shop after hearing friends and neighbors talk about what they were missing from local stores.
“You can buy so much Chinese medicine and snacks here,” Lei said. “And you can solve most people’s homesick feelings just by getting them something small.”
Chinese president Xi Jinping has warned other countries against making trade deals with the United States, and Trump is pressuring other nations to isolate China.
Meanwhile, small business owners are caught in the crossfire, Li said.
“Even if we are not going to raise the prices very much, I still feel like my customers will hurt,” Li said. “I hope this can get over soon and tariffs can go down to a normal level.”
Clayton Xu and the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community provided translation assistance.
