Miguel Afonso Caetano<p>"Ryan Zhou, the owner of a business making novelty gifts in eastern China, has been working flat out since April to open a new factory in an unfamiliar location: Dallas, Texas.</p><p>The 38-year-old has been pulling 14-hour shifts for weeks as he rushes to find warehouses, arrange shipping and obtain US work visas for his employees, with the new facility set to open in May.<br>Shifting production to the American South has been a complex process, but Zhou feels he has no choice: unless he can find a way to circumvent a crippling wave of US tariff hikes, his business may struggle to survive.</p><p>“The United States accounts for nearly 95 per cent of our orders,” he said. “It’s not a market we can afford to lose.”</p><p>Zhou is far from alone. Chinese manufacturers across a wide range of sectors – from petrochemicals to printed mugs – have been quietly but rapidly moving to set up new American facilities in recent weeks, as they try to dodge the worst effects of an intensifying US-China trade war.</p><p>US President Donald Trump has raised duties on Chinese goods by an eye-watering 145 per cent since returning to office in January, leading Beijing to hit back with retaliatory levies of 125 per cent. In many industries, the sky-high tariffs threaten to make direct US-China trade commercially unfeasible.</p><p>For Zhou’s company, which makes customised gifts such as print-on-demand mugs and T-shirts, another major blow has been the Trump administration’s decision to scrap the “de minimis” rule that exempted small shipments from US import taxes.</p><p>Until recently, Zhou’s business sent thousands of parcels a day to the United States tariff-free. Now, those deliveries face a 90 per cent levy, which threatens to dramatically increase his shipping costs."</p><p><a href="https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3307943/chinese-firms-race-open-us-factories-avoid-sky-high-tariffs" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">scmp.com/economy/china-economy</span><span class="invisible">/article/3307943/chinese-firms-race-open-us-factories-avoid-sky-high-tariffs</span></a></p><p><a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/USA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USA</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Trump" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Trump</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/China" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>China</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Tariffs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Tariffs</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Manufacturing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Manufacturing</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/TradeWar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>TradeWar</span></a></p>