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Foreign manufacturers in China pay 125% rights to import components, then 145% to export to the United States while Donald Trump's trade war hammered their operations.
International companies and joint ventures represent nearly a third of the total China trade, according to official data which clearly indicates the extent of their exposure to prices.
Large American companies such as Apple and Tesla and many small producers are counting on China as a manufacturing base. These companies often import raw materials or components of the United States for the assembly of products which are then exported.
This leaves them exposed to the possibility of paying the American and Chinese prices on the same goods, said economists, after Trump has increased the samples from all Chinese exports to 145%, which led Beijing to retaliate.
“Foreign companies are really in a hurry on the Chinese market,” said Heiwai Tang, director of the ASIA Global Institute of the University of Hong Kong. “If they matter, they pay Chinese prices. When they export to the United States, they pay American prices. ”
“They are struck twice.”
Companies entirely or partially belonging abroad in the country represented $ 980 billion in Chinese exports last year, or more than a quarter, and 820 billion dollars in imports, or more than a third, data from the general customs administration and calculations by financial time in China. China has recorded a record of record trade in Almost 1 TN Last year.
The Chinese export machine was built on companies entirely and partially belonging to foreigners, including those of Hong Kong and Macao, which sought to take advantage of the country's immense and inexpensive labor market to make goods.
Companies invested abroad, as they are called in China, represented 55% of the country's total trade in 2008.
This share has dropped over the years, China has developed a more aggressive policy of industrial self -sufficiency. But companies fully abroad still represented 29.6% of trade in dollars last year, according to government figures.
They represented only 16% of China's trade surplus last year, because the quantity of exports of foreign companies was offset by their largest share of total imports.
“There are a number of foreign companies operating in China which are not American but which are counting on American contributions and are therefore also affected,” said the president of the American Chamber of Commerce, Michael Hart. The Chinese Commerce Ministry is Considering exemptions on prices for certain sectorsSaid Hart.
China grants certain exemptions from its customs rights for companies that import components and raw materials for goods that will be re -exported, which is known as “processing trade”.
Some larger American manufacturers, including smartphone manufacturers and certain electronics producers, have also won temporary exemptions of Trump.
But with the trade war, many foreign companies can still find this prohibitive China export, especially smaller producers.
Jacob Rothman, Managing Director of Velong Enterprises, based in China, which manufactures kitchen utensils and domestic products sold by American retailers, including Walmart, said it imported Tritan, a form of plastic, from the American company Eastman.
“We are struck by double prices on products with this equipment,” said Rothman. “Once when importing the equipment, and again when exporting finished products.”
He said China had granted a tariff exemption if the final product had been exported to the United States in a certain period. But China has not granted exemption if the product was exported to countries other than the United States.
Economists have warned that the trade war could lead to a new drop in foreign direct investment entrances to China, which dropped 27.1% in 2024 a year earlier in terms of Renminbi, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce.
“For those who enter China to serve the Chinese market, they can still come. But if your objective is to serve other markets, especially in the United States, you will be much injured,” said Qiu Dongxiao, head of the economy department at the University of Lingnan in Hong Kong “you must therefore reconsider your global strategy.”
