At the Canton Trade Fair, which opened its spring session in Guangzhou on April 15, the specter of tariffs haunts the expo floor. From cutting-edge technology to consumer goods, the impact of the escalating trade war between China and the U.S. can be heard and felt. But the products on display at the multitude of booths are seen to be providing a much-needed boost to sentiment surrounding “Made in China”. “Our distributors in the U.S. now fall into two camps: those holding back and placing no orders, and those who have placed orders but told us not to ship,” said a sales manager from an electronics company that was seeing 40% of its sales come from the U.S. market before the current upheaval.
With a booth at the event, she said suppliers like her company are all waiting to see how the two countries move forward with negotiations, and how tariffs will ultimately affect different product categories. “Only then can we figure out whether there’s still a chance, or how we might split the tariff burden with our customers,” she added. The firm is among many Chinese businesses at the fair choosing to hold back from the U.S. market amid the trade war, as soaring U.S. import duties have made it basically impossible for them to stay commercially viable in the American market.
As of today, Trump has imposed a 125% duty on Chinese imports since April, on top of 20% imposed earlier this year, bringing the effective cumulative rate to about 156% and for some products even as high as 245%. With its swift retaliation, Beijing’s new levies on U.S. goods have risen to 125%, also on top of previous tariffs. This session of the three-week Canton Fair attracted more than 200,000 overseas buyers from 215 countries and regions as of the end of last week, according to the organizers.
Buyers from the U.S. were telling much the same story. Frank Fan, who runs a trading company in Los Angeles that mainly imports traditional consumer goods, said he was at the fair simply to browse new products and inquire about prices, instead of placing any orders. “Right now, with U.S. tariff policies constantly shifting, all orders are on hold. Nobody knows what Trump’s next step will be,” he said. “What if we order now and tariffs get lowered later? It would be silly to end up overpaying for nothing.”
Among the 20 halls in the giant exhibition center, the two featuring new-energy vehicles (NEVs) and smart robotics have been the most crowded, with a dedicated zone of service robots debuting for the first time at the fair. An executive at a surgical-robot supplier said she was optimistic about the potential in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe, thanks to growing global demand for precision healthcare. But when it came to the U.S. market, she said it was “not under consideration for now”.
Still, some hi-tech suppliers remain confident in their products, despite the state of trade. “The current tariff chaos is not a problem for an original product that’s fully patented,” said Ivan Duan of Luoteng Science and Technology, a company claiming to make the world’s only intelligent amphibious spherical robot, known as the Rotunbot. The robot, designed for harsh environments and high-risk scenarios, drew crowds of both foreign and Chinese buyers at the fair, the South China Morning Post reports.
