Meanwhile, on the Communist Chinese domestic front, Lily Zhou of the Epoch Times reported Communist China’s exporters are scrambling to find domestic buyers for their consumer goods as orders from the United States have dried up during an escalating trade war.
On Red Chinese social media platforms, exporters joined the domestic Chinese direct-to-consumer livestream market, attempting to offload products that were initially meant for foreign customers. Some factories have slowed or halted production.
If the trade war persists, “the damage to the Chinese economy will be far greater than the impact to the U.S. economy,” U.S.-based China affairs commentator Wang He told The Epoch Times.
Luna Sun, writing for the South China Morning Post, reported some Chinese exporters are taking the drastic step of ditching shipments mid-voyage and surrendering containers to shipping companies to avoid crushing tariff costs.
Industry insiders have dubbed the move “preparing for the Long March”, a grim metaphor for what many see as a prolonged and punishing downturn in cross-Pacific trade.
A staff member at a China-listed export company, who requested anonymity, said its US-bound container volume had plummeted from 40 to 50 containers a day to just three to six as a result of the new tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the second Trump administration. It has increased tariffs by 104 per cent this year, taking the total impost to around 115 per cent.
The new tariffs have triggered a backlash from Beijing and sent shock waves through global markets, fueling fears that a full-scale trade war is about to break out.
“We’ve halted all shipping plans from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia,” the employee said. “Every factory order is halted. Anything that hasn’t been loaded will be scrapped, and the cargo already at sea is being re-costed.”
One client had told the company it was abandoning goods already on the water and giving them to the shipping company, as “no one will buy them after the tariffs are imposed”.
However, while Communist Chinese exporters are scrapping goods not shipped or abandoning goods already at sea, the Communist government has quietly reduced the tariffs or exempted certain imports from the United States, because the Red Chinese economy cannot operate without them.
Alan Tonelson, a trade expert at RealityChek, told the Gatestone Institute for an April 25, 2025 report, "In fact, the tariff waivers underscore that not only does Beijing need access to the American market far more than Americans need the China market but also that the United States makes vital products that simply aren't Made in China, and won't be for years at best."
Beijing has ordered its airlines not to take delivery of Boeing aircraft, and the plane maker has now flown back, from Communist China to the U.S., three 737 Max aircraft that were about to be delivered. Due to the long order backlogs at both Boeing and Airbus, this punishment imposes, as a practical matter, almost no cost on Boeing. Yet if Trump were to order Boeing not to deliver parts or provide services to Communist Chinese airlines, Red China would soon have to ground a large number of its airliners.
Communist China, according to Reuters and Financial Times reporting on April 25, is not uniformly imposing its new 125% across-the-board tariff on American goods. In short, certain imports from the U.S. are in fact coming in tariff-free. Beijing's new policy has not been announced and is not official.
"Companies in sectors including aviation and industrial chemicals said that some of their products had already been granted a reprieve, while local media reported that some semiconductors had been spared tariffs," the Financial Times noted.
American Chamber of Commerce in China President Michael Hart told Reuters that some pharmaceutical company members of his organization had said they were now able to import products tariff-free.
Communist China is also exempting aircraft engines, nacelles, landing gear, and parts.
The exemptions suggest a trend. "Recent reports on China secretly waiving tariffs on U.S. imports including certain semiconductors, industrial chemicals, and medical devices add up to a clear Chinese cave-in in its trade conflict with Trump," trade expert Alan Tonelson told Gatestone.
The move is significant, but why is Beijing making such important trade concessions without admitting it is making concessions?
Simple: Having staked its credibility on fighting President Trump, Xi Jinping's regime simply cannot admit that it is not able to stand up to Trump and do without American products.
- 2024 Election
- MAGA Agenda
- China policy
- Trump tariffs
- Trade war
- China domestic buyers
- China manufacturing
- China exporting
- China container shipping
- Boeing aircraft
- U.S. tariffs
