One year after Trump's tariffs, foreign media realize: China is a place that is hard to replicate

[By / Observer Network Wang Yi]

One year after U.S. President Donald Trump began brandishing the “tariff hammer,” this policy—once expected to crack down on Chinese manufacturing and revive American industry—has failed to deliver the anticipated results. Instead, in the face of the shock from Trump’s erratic and unpredictable policies, Chinese manufacturing has proven that—“China is a place that is very hard to replicate.”

On April 6, Reuters in the UK noted that during his campaign, Trump had promised to use tariffs to drive the reindustrialization of the United States and to strengthen the U.S. economy and its global influence. However, on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the “Liberation Day” tariff policy, the recovery of China’s manufacturing industry may have surprised him.

This March, China’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) grew at the fastest pace in more than a year, rising to 50.4%, showing a clear rebound in manufacturing activity.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Asia Chief Economist Nick Marro said bluntly, “The data confirms that Trump’s tariffs have not broken China’s overall manufacturing momentum.”

“Everything is slower than China by way too much, way too much, way too much”

The experience of Anji Lian Technology Co., Ltd. in Dongguan—which manufactures products on behalf of Western brands—serves as a typical case proving that tariffs cannot bring down Chinese manufacturing. The company’s annual revenue is roughly $30 million; U.S. orders once accounted for more than half of its revenue. But after Trump took office, as the possibility of higher tariffs grew, many customers demanded that the company shift production capacity outside China.

Renaud Anjoran, vice president of Anji Lian Technology, said that as early as during the 2024 U.S. election campaign—when Trump’s poll numbers gradually climbed—the company’s customers, seeking to avoid potential tariff risks, required shipments to be sent to North American warehouses in advance. Other U.S. importers also behaved similarly, causing warehousing prices to surge sharply.

After Trump won re-election, Anji Lian Technology repeatedly received late-night calls from “panicked” customers. One customer even had family in Penang, Malaysia, and suggested that the company set up a production base there.

Anji Lian Technology had previously established an entity in India, but most customers refused to produce there because they worried about slow production, customs delays, and other issues. In an interview at the Dongguan factory, CEO Fabien Gaussorgues revealed that producing in India does indeed “take time.” “We spent a year just to complete formal registration.”

After Trump took office, on April 2 of last year, the White House announced the so-called “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs in the Rose Garden, imposing tiered tariff increases on countries and a 10% baseline tariff on countries not listed. Then, in response by China, Trump repeatedly raised tariff rates again, causing U.S. tariffs on China to reach one hundred-something percent at one point.

For Anji Lian Technology’s customers, this change was “catastrophic.” Large numbers of orders were canceled, and the 12k-square-meter Dongguan factory was once full of piled-up inventory. Company executives described it as, at the time, “everything was frozen.”

In March of this year, workers were working at Anji Lian Technology’s Dongguan factory. Reuters

After that, Anji Lian Technology decided to go to Penang, Malaysia, to look for partner factories; to inspect industrial leasing space in Dharwad, India; and even to assess the possibility of setting up a factory in the United States. But they soon found that the U.S. supply chain was not complete and still depended on Chinese components, and labor costs were much higher.

By mid-2025, Anji Lian Technology’s India team had found roughly 4,000 square meters of factory space and discussed what product types could be produced. But then the U.S. and China reached an agreement to significantly reduce tariffs. In August last year, while the India factory had not yet been completed, Trump raised tariffs on India by 50% again, pressuring it to stop buying Russian oil.

Trial production in Penang also started around mid-last year, but the team found that “everything is slower than China by way too much, way too much, way too much.”

Chinese manufacturing: still indispensable

Meanwhile, Reuters noted that China’s retaliation against the U.S. via export controls on critical minerals exposed the high degree of U.S. dependence on China, offsetting the impact of tariffs to a certain extent.

Denis Depoux, co-president of the Global Management Committee at German management consulting firm Roland Berger, commented that “China has already shown the world that rare earths are a ‘mass destruction lever,’ which can be described as a nuclear weapon in the field of trade.”

After meeting with the Chinese side, Trump lowered tariffs by 10 percentage points in October. Since then, Anji Lian Technology’s customers have largely stopped discussing tariffs or offshoring capacity. The company said that its production hours in the second half of 2025 hit a record high, up 29% from the first half. With tariffs staying at a relatively high but acceptable level, orders were released again and began to grow.

Gaussorgues said that exports from China to the U.S. in 2025 fell by 20%, which brought a shock to manufacturers that rely on the U.S. market like them, and he is expecting new breakthroughs during Trump’s visit to China in May.

Multiple economists and company executives expect that Trump’s visit to China this time may continue the “détente period” between the two major economies. Analyzing this, Nick Marro, EIU Asia’s chief economist, said the most realistic scenario might be that the two countries commit to continue dialogue and build some kind of framework to prevent trade tensions from escalating like they did last year.

Regarding China-U.S. economic and trade relations, on April 2, He Yadong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that both China and the U.S. should implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and the outcomes of prior economic and trade consultations, further leverage the consultation mechanism on economic and trade matters between China and the U.S., strengthen communication and dialogue, properly manage and control differences, expand practical cooperation, and promote healthy, stable, and sustainable development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations.

The management of Anji Lian Technology said that if tariffs return to 100% in the future, U.S. customers may again request a pause in production and a delay in shipments. This forces the company to continue expanding capacity in India and Malaysia as a “protective layout.” But as the costs of Chinese components fall and quality improves, its Dongguan base remains indispensable.

That is also the role Chinese manufacturing plays in the global supply chain system. Data shows that for all of 2025, China’s trade surplus grew by about 1/5, reaching a record $1.2 trillion—roughly equivalent to the GDP (gross domestic product) of the Netherlands. In the first two months of 2026, China’s trade surplus rose to $213.6 billion, clearly expanding compared with $169.21 billion in the same period last year.

In March, China’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) grew at the fastest pace in more than a year, rising to 50.4%, indicating a clear recovery in manufacturing activity.

“Data confirms that Trump’s tariffs indeed have not broken the momentum we see in China’s manufacturing industry.” Marro said that Trump’s tariffs have not weakened Chinese manufacturing; instead, they have “reshaped trade connections and the structure of supply chains.”

U.S. businesses and consumers bear 80% to 85% of the tariff costs

On March 3, CNBC also pointed out in a report that one year after Trump announced “reciprocal tariffs,” the economic and political uncertainty triggered by this measure is still continuing to brew, with some U.S. companies continuing to bear its downstream effects.

Venky Ramesh, a supply chain expert at supply chain consulting firm AlixPartners, said, “U.S. companies at the top level have no choice but to rethink sourcing—whether we can continue to rely on imports.” Roughly 80% to 85% of the costs are ultimately absorbed domestically, meaning either U.S. companies themselves absorb the impact, or they pass it on to consumers, or both.

Chart of the trend in U.S. tariff rates from March 2025 to April 2026 CNBC charting

According to reports, in a continuing environment of changing trade and tariff policies, U.S. businesses have been forced over the past year to increase flexibility and diversify their supply chains. Moving production out of countries such as China, Vietnam, or Mexico may reduce import costs, but for many industries it is extremely difficult to implement.

Ramesh said that in the first few months after Trump announced the tariffs, he saw customers take “aggressive” measures—front-loading decisions and planning before tariff costs rose. But later, as policies kept changing, companies began to slow down, and they invested more resources into scenario simulation and analysis.

“Shifting the supplier system cannot be completed overnight,” Ramesh said. “Companies adopt a gradual strategy. They want to ensure that their own supply chains are truly diversified.”

In February of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the large-scale tariff policy implemented by the Trump administration invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) was unconstitutional. But only hours later, Trump announced that, under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a 10% “global tariff” would be imposed on most products worldwide for 150 days. He then said he would raise the global tariff to 15%.

Ramesh believes that in the end, the tariff policy over the past year changed the way U.S. companies operate on a cultural level. Companies will no longer make reckless decisions, and they are no longer as easily disrupted by changes in policy as they were a year ago. “The real changes that remain are that the importance of supply chains as a core capability for companies has been greatly elevated. I think that was fundamentally changed over the past year.”

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