China "Implores" U.S. for Talks as 245% Tariffs Push Its Manufacturing to the Brink of Collapse.

It's all covered in today's China Truths. At present, the Sino-US trade war is in full swing. Exporters have suspended shipments, and a large number of cargo ships and cargo flights on Sino-US routes have been cancelled. Containers are piling up at Chinese port terminals. The container terminals in Guangzhou, Ningbo and Qingdao, which used to handle thousands of goods day and night, are now deserted like abandoned ports. Port workers only work three days a week. Experts predict that China's exports to the United States will fall by two-thirds in the coming quarters. Under growing economic pressure, the mood among Chinese people is getting increasingly gloomy. On the internet, netizens are discussing how to eat tree bark. Some even share detailed methods of drying, grinding, sieving and steaming, mocking the current economic hardship. The United States' 145% tariff on Chinese goods officially took effect this week, delivering a major blow to China's export chain. Export factories in Zhejiang and Guangdong, two major foreign trade provinces, have ground to a halt, with warehouses stacked full of goods originally intended for export. At the recent Canton Fair, US orders were almost completely suspended, and the market seemed frozen. Chinese foreign trade companies are facing enormous challenges. Many factories have no orders and are on the verge of bankruptcy. More people are expected to lose their jobs. Negative sentiment is spreading, and netizens are reposting guides on how to eat tree bark. Let's talk about related issues today. This wave of tariff wars launched by the United States is simply devastating. Our factory has never been this depressed. It's difficult to secure orders, and both the workshop and machine room have stopped operating. Other factories that mainly export to the United States are in even worse condition. In order to support the employees, the boss of our factory is desperately clearing out inventory, hoping that customers from Yiwu Trade City will place orders. As a result, the pressure of clearing inventory will likely fall on us salespeople in the near future. First of all, are factories in Suzhou still short of workers? Most factories in Suzhou are no longer facing labor shortages. Most of the current recruitment is for female workers, with few openings for male workers. Second, do electronics factories in Suzhou still have orders? Many factories now have very few orders. Even if they have some, they're not hiring. Third, factories are no longer hiring student workers. Some students want to work during the summer vacation, but factories are not recruiting such workers anymore. Fourth, are wages in Suzhou currently high? Salaries in Suzhou are not high. The average monthly salary is around 4,000 to 6,000 yuan. According to the original audio, 147 to 232, the actual hourly wage is about 17 to 22 yuan. Working in factories has been getting worse year by year. Many factories have relocated, shut down, or been sold off by their owners. Factories today are not what they used to be. Now everything is about cutting and saving costs. Many factories try to lower wages as much as possible, believing that the lower the wages, the more workers they can get. It's different from the past when even offering high wages couldn't attract enough people. Now, low wages attract plenty. The Canton Fair, regarded as a barometer of foreign trade, opened on April 15. After Trump imposed tariffs, many exhibitors said that not only have U.S. orders nearly disappeared this year, but orders from EU customers have also declined significantly. According to the organizers of the Canton Fair, as of April 8, about 170,000 overseas buyers had registered to attend. However, buyers from the United States and Europe accounted for only 10%, far lower than the previous session's 20%. The real numbers may be even worse. I never expected that a certain company in Kunshan would stop recruiting, the one just behind me. Once it stops recruiting, it means there will be no factories left in all of Kunshan. A company that hires people every day, 365 days a year, has now stopped. This shows how bad the market situation is this year. I'm really not exaggerating. Fellow villagers, if you are in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, or Shanghai now, don't be picky about jobs. No matter how much you earn, find a stable job first. Those of you who have jobs should never quit. Once you quit, you might not find a better job than the one you have now. These days, many people are drifting around, and many of them have been stranded without finding work. They're not being picky. They just want a stable job that pays. But now companies are overcrowded, and there are people everywhere. Some haven't found a job even after a whole month. How much impact does the Sino-US trade war have on our factory? We opened a shoe factory in Jinjiang, Fujian, and we've been running it for nearly 40 years. We used to produce and OEM for more than 20 brands. Half of those brands are American, which means we won't be able to receive nearly 50% of the US-related orders this year. Even if we try to transfer them, we still won't get the orders. Our factory has nearly 3,000 employees. The factory can't stop, the assembly line can't stop, and production can't stop. So our next main task is to develop our own brand. The US has raised tariffs to 145%. What impact will this have on ordinary people? Can people with a monthly salary of just a few thousand yuan stay unaffected? This blogger said the biggest impact of the tariff hike is on people like us, with only a few thousand yuan per month in income. Today, I'll use plain language to explain how the Sino-US trade war affects ordinary people and what we should do about it. The first truth is that a 145% tariff means many domestic export companies can go bankrupt immediately. The reason is simple. If a product that used to sell for 100 yuan in the US now has to sell for 245 yuan, naturally, no one will buy it, and Chinese products won't be exported. This will lead to the collapse of upstream and downstream companies and related supply chains, and a large number of workers will be laid off. These workers will enter other industries, triggering even fiercer internal competition, even affecting jobs like delivery drivers or cleaning staff. This makes people like us, who are already exhausted, fall even deeper into internal competition. So everyone, this trade war isn't just a survival of the fittest. It's a battle for survival. The second truth is that the ones who suffer the most are ordinary workers like us. When a company goes bankrupt, the boss may still have a way out. A lean camel is still bigger than a horse. But thousands of employees lose their jobs. These people are forced into the labor market, and their only way to compete is to accept lower wages. This not only affects job seekers, but also puts pressure on your current job. For example, you might be earning 5,000 yuan a month now, but soon someone more skilled and hardworking might be willing to work for just 4,000, or even 3,000. If you were the boss, what would you do? Business is tough, so pay cuts and intense competition may become the new normal. Third, prices will rise again, money will lose value, and housing prices will continue to fall. What's most frightening about this trade war is that we can't make money through exports. When it becomes harder to make money, people become more afraid to spend money. That's how we fall into a vicious cycle, and the national economy will suffer. I decided to quit, sell the equipment, close the factory, and never touch manufacturing again. I originally thought I could survive 2023, 2024, and 2025, hoping things would get better. But since the beginning of the year, I've seen no hope at all. The boss of a factory in Shenzhen said she made the decision to sell the factory. She said, come take it away today. I don't want to see this factory again. The blogger added that bosses in foreign trade are especially anxious recently because there are no orders. A friend of mine in the luggage business said he's only doing inventory orders now. If not, what will his workers do? They're all long-time employees. If the factory isn't busy and they take time off, staff turnover increases. When orders return, the employees may not come back. It's a real headache. Even if you lower your prices, that won't bring in more orders. The truth is, no one has orders right now. So don't panic. Take a break and adjust. Being anxious won't help. In recent years, because of the Sino-U.S. trade war, many large factories, especially those focused on exports to the U.S., have moved their supply chains to countries like Vietnam and India. This tariff war might truly be the final straw for the manufacturing industry, especially for OEM factories. Just look around. How many factories have shut down recently? Yes, you heard that right. They've all shut down. So don't complain about low wages right now. Just get by. At the very least, make sure you can feed and clothe yourself. Someone once predicted that there would be no jobs in 2025. At the time, I didn't believe it. I said, our country has such a huge industrial system and a complete production chain. But now, I finally believe it. U.S. President Trump has launched the Retaliatory Tariffs Policy, and the Chinese Communist Party government immediately announced retaliatory measures, not only increasing the tension between China and the United States, but also causing confidence in China's domestic market to continue to decline seriously. The signs of the collapse of the Chinese economy are more obvious than ever. U.S. President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social social media account that the United States can earn billions of dollars a week from tariffs, oil prices, interest rates, and food prices are all falling. And there is no inflation. And the Chinese market is collapsing. He criticized that China likes to take advantage of the United States. And now they are ignoring warnings and imposing retaliatory tariffs, even increasing the already high tariffs by 34%. He said China has made enough money off the United States over the past few decades, and that previous U.S. presidents who have allowed them to have whatever they want are responsible for this. On April 7th, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social as follows. Yesterday, China issued retaliatory tariffs of 34%. On top of their already record-setting tariffs, non-monetary tariffs, illegal subsidization of companies, and massive long-term currency manipulation. Despite my warning that any country that retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional tariffs above and beyond their already existing long-term tariff abuse of our nation will be immediately met with new and substantially higher tariffs over and above those initially set. Therefore, if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long-term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose additional tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated. Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Immediately after that, China's three major A-share indexes all fell sharply. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 7.3%, the biggest drop in five years. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 9.66%, falling below the 10,000-point mark. And the Chinex Index fell 12.5%. China's stock market is wailing. More than 5,000 stocks fell, and thousands of stocks hit the limit. Affected by tariffs, global stock markets are volatile. On the morning of Monday, April 7th, the three major A-share indices in the mainland fell across the board, among which the Shanghai Composite Index fell below 3,100 points, down 7.24%. There were 5,360 stocks falling in the market, and more than 1,000 stocks hit the limit. According to reports from the mainland financial sector, on the morning of Monday, the three major A-share indices opened low and fell across the board, among which the Shanghai Composite Index fell below 3,100 points and dropped 7.24%. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 9%. And the Chinex Index fell 11.07%. More than 1,000 stocks in the market hit the limit. The CSI 300 fell 6.41% to 3,614.15%. The Science and Technology Innovation 50 fell 6.67% to 950.12 points. The Beijing Stock Exchange 50 fell 12.33% to 1,115.54 points. The total turnover of the three markets of Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing was 651.259 billion yuan, RMB, the same below, and 5,360 stocks in the market fell, in terms of industries, the automobile, machinery, home appliances, non-ferrous metals, and petroleum sectors led the decline. In response, Chinese stock investors wailed. Some people said, The stock price has hit the limit down for the first time in history, and investors have lost everything. It is also rare. Today, Monday is really scary. Oh my god, it's really green. One of my stocks has hit the limit down for 71.5% of its heavy positions. I dare not look at it. The limit down, you can't run even if you want to. It's pitiful. The market plummeted, and retail investors were like riding a roller coaster. The most uncomfortable are the stock investors. They didn't buy the clothes they wanted to buy, the gold jewelry they wanted to buy, and the cars they wanted to buy, and finally donated them to the stock market. Can it hold 3,000 points? As expected, no one really thinks that A shares can be fine in this trade war. In the past two days, countless people laughed at others, saying that they were so strong and tough that they would not fall. On April 7, the Chinex index fell by 12% in the afternoon. The Shanghai Composite Index fell by nearly 8%. And the Shenzhen Component Index fell by nearly 10%. Nearly 4,500 stocks in Shenzhen and Beijing fell by more than 9%, of which nearly 1,600 stocks fell by more than 15%. On April 2, U.S. President Trump announced a 34% reciprocal tariff on Chinese goods, thereby raising the actual tariff rate on China to 54%. On April 4, the CCP announced a series of retaliatory measures, including a 34% tariff on U.S. imports. At the same time, the CCP launched internal propaganda in China to incite anti-U.S. sentiment. Guangdong companies stop accepting U.S. orders. Jiangsu e-commerce says the CCP is besieged on all sides. According to Radio Free Asia, the head of a Guangzhou company that exports Bluetooth headsets and other electronic products said in an interview on April 7 that most of Guangdong's U.S. trading companies have stopped accepting U.S. orders due to tariff barriers. The head said that there was also a Hong Kong company that had just moved its factory to Vietnam, but the United States suddenly imposed a 46% tariff on Vietnamese goods. They could not escape the high tariffs, and their previous investment was useless. The factory was already in trouble. An e-commerce company in Jiangsu also said that the high tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese goods will lead to the closure of a large number of e-commerce companies. He said that e-commerce has been hit hard and basically there is no profit, and it is impossible to do it. There are many e-commerce companies in Jiangsu and Guangdong, and now they can't do it. It's time for people to starve to death. He also complained that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have messed up the country, and its foreign policy is besieged on all sides. No country in the world has normal exchanges with China. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. We will keep reporting on the Covid surge in China, so don't forget to subscribe to our channel and turn on the notification bell to get the latest videos. And thank you for tuning in.