Anti-China tariffs put in place by the Trump administration have sent jitters into the US retail market, triggering fears of product shortages and price hikes.
US media reported on Saturday that American retailers are gradually becoming more concerned about the US-China trade war launched by US President Donald Trump.
The retailers are worried that Trump’s tariffs will likely lead to stagnant sales and higher inflation as cheap Chinese goods stop entering the US market.
US retailers are worried that they might not get goods to fill their shops, or their consumers might revolt because they don’t want to pay the tariffs, and as a result their sales plummet.
They say the increased volatility in trade and demand in the US market will result in empty shelves, higher prices, and ultimately the shutdown of businesses.
A slew of US companies have already warned of higher prices. Among them, include Procter & Gamble, Best Buy, Unilever, Ford, Shein, Temu, AutoZone, and Hermès.
“Starting in a couple of weeks, we are just going to start running out of stuff, and if the administration waits to resolve the problem until we have shortages and hoarding, that is just too late,” Sean Stein, president of the US-China Business Council, said in an interview with US media.
As the repercussions of the trade war between the world’s top two economies unravel, Beijing, for its part, reiterated that the Chinese nation is prepared to fight an unwanted long war of attrition against the Trump administration.
Beijing “will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its rights and interests,” China’s commerce ministry has announced.
“The US tariff escalation threat against China compounds its mistake and further exposes its nature of blackmail, which China will never accept,” the statement said. “China will fight till the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.”
The United States imported $438.9 billion in goods from China in 2024, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative, showing a 2.8 percent rise from the year before.
In the meantime, the EU’s executive body has sought to return calm to markets by finding a solution to the trade war.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen even contacted Chinese Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 leader.
A statement released by the European Commission said von der Leyen “called for a negotiated resolution to the current situation, emphasizing the need to avoid further escalation.”
However, business consultants familiar with these matters said they expected the Chinese side to continue to “hunker down for a protracted economic war of attrition” against the United States and its allies for the time being.
“This strategy of patient resistance is based on a conviction that seven years of efforts to reduce reliance on the US has rendered China economically resilient to the trade war now underway,” stated Gabriel Wildau, a managing director at the consultancy Teneo.
“China’s leaders believe that over the long term, Trump is ill-equipped to withstand the political pressure that his tariff policies will generate.”
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