Over the past seven years, Zhoushan Airport near Shanghai has been the delivery point and the completion center for new Boeing aircraft in China. But on Monday, against the darkening sky of a trade war, a plane of 737 came back where it came from.
Beijing suspended the orders of new jets after the prices have evolved and that the director general of Boeing, Kelly Ortberg, confirmed this week that the company had resumed two planes in China due to delivery and bringing a third party.
The returned planes illustrate how Donald Trump's escalation disrupted American affairs on one of the largest markets in the world.
For many well-known American companies, the prospect of a clearer break between the United States and China threatens a vast corporate infrastructure that goes from the factory to the end of the consumer, which was at the heart of the growth prospects they have sold to their investors.
Even if Washington has encouraged American companies for years to “deactivate” their presence, many have always been deeply dependent on Chinese supply chains or, like Boeing, sell products on the continent. Others have ambitions to draw on the rapidly evolving consumers' market in China, even if growth slows down and political tensions are rising.
“It is surprising in my less mind how much American companies have reduced their exposure to China and more to what extent they are exposed to China,” said Isaac Stone Fish, Managing Director of Strategy Risks, an business intelligence company in New York.
In addition to dealing with the volatility of climbing prices by the White House, American companies in China are also risking a Beijing reaction, which has the power to put any business in its reticle.
The authorities responded to previous prices targeting the PVH group, the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, citing a Alleged boycott From the Xinjiang Cotton and the first time that a company with major operations in the country had been added to the list of unreliable entities in China, which can cause fines and blocks on trade and investment. Beijing has also added the Californian biotechnology company Illumina to the list.
Since Trump at the beginning of this year started increasing the prices on Chinese products, which are now 145% after its escalation of the “Liberation Day”, Beijing pressure increased for certain companies.
The authorities last month summoned Walmart – whose parent in America is one of the largest American import engines from China – on information that it was pressure on the continent’s suppliers to reduce prices in order to reduce the impact of prices.
However, Beijing also wanted to keep Western companies next to it and to provide foreign investments at a lower economic momentum. President Xi Jinping met international business leaders in March, notably Ray Dalio de Bridgewater as well as leaders of Fedex and Qualcomm.
China has granted price exemptions On American imports and plans to raise other rights, an official of the US Chamber of Commerce said on Friday.
It is unlikely that the Chinese government wants to alienate large investors, said James Zimmerman, partner of the law firm Loeb & Loeb who works with American groups in Beijing, although he added that companies remain suspicious.
“We have not found any real constraints, but many companies are looking for advice on the risks of receiving reprisal measures by China and best practices on the best way to mitigate the risk of any reprisal actions,” said Zimmerman.
One of the main American companies confronted at risk in China is Tesla, led by a close ally Trump Elon Musk. The manufacturer of electric vehicles has a factory in Shanghai which represents more than 40% of its production capacity and has benefited from billions of dollars in subsidies, cheap loans and tax alternatives from the Chinese government. The company is also based on battery cells from China for its vehicles assembled in the United States.
Other American companies with significant exposure in China, the risk of strategy has cited Colgate-Palmolive, a large buyer of Chinese toothbrushes, Intel, where China led 29% of income last year and the manufacturer of Cigarettes Philip Morris International, due to the domination of China of manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries used in electronic cigarettes.
Friday, the leaders of Colgate-Palmolive told analysts that the company had reduced in recent years its dependence on raw materials and finished products from China. But they said that the prices should still add $ 200 million to the company's costs this year, or around 2.5% of its total cost of sold goods sold.
Philip Morris’s financial director Emmanuel Babeau said this week that the company is currently not providing for a significant impact on our activities from recently introduced or discussed prices. “
“Overall, our companies are engaged on the Chinese market despite geopolitical tensions,” said Eric Zheng, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He underlined the emphasis on a “China for China” strategy that entered the point during the coastal border closuresCompanies developing and producing goods in China for the internal market, rather than exporting abroad.
“Our retail members are probably more optimistic about the potential here,” he added.
Although domestic demand has had difficulties under the weight of a slowdown in property, American multinationals are still predicting to develop on the country's vast consumer market.
McDonald's, which holds a 48% stake in its continental entity, aims to hold more than 10,000 points of sale in China by 2028, against 5,500 in 2023 and half that in 2017. Starbucks, which faced a fierce competition of domestic coffee points, opened 790 new stores on a net basis last September.
Disney received approvals this year to extend its Shanghai theme park, the first on the continent, which opened its doors in 2016. The launch of Disneyland “was a great honor for us Shanghainese,” said Zhou Peicheng, a 55 -year -old retiree visiting for the first time while the crowd was at the time of the week.
Inside the Sam's Club in Shanghai, one of the many points of sale for warehouse stores reserved for members of Walmart in the city, there are few immediate signs of the trade war.
“For us, ordinary people, daily life has much to do with politics,” said a middle age customer with 30 eggs and 2 liters of milk. “Your typical citizen pays only to goods and prices,” he added.
Walmart increased in China: its activities increased 23% in the country in annual sliding during the last quarter.
But the case of Boeing underlines how much the plans can change. Ortberg said this week that the company was still around fifty China Deliveries planned for this year, but business has not been disrupted.
“This is an unfortunate situation, but we have many customers who want short-term deliveries, so we plan to redirect the offer,” he said. “We are not going to continue to build planes for customers who will not take them.”
Additional Zehra Munnir report in New York and Chan Ho-Him in Hong Kong
