How Trump s tariffs are hitting one Chinese factory owner We are helpless

DONGGUAN, China – Women in blue cloth hairnets sew the finishing touches on plush pink piggies and orange stuffed foxes before tossing them onto giant piles in Ms Maria Liao’s factory in southern China.

They will be boxed and shipped to the United States, where many of her clients are based.

The factory is quieter than it should be.

Orders are down in 2025, as Ms Liao’s customers hesitate in the face of a succession of tariffs that US President Donald Trump has put on products coming from China, another round of which will probably come this week.

The duties have upended small businesses in the US that depend on factories in China to build the things they design and sell.

The tariffs are also reverberating on the other side of the ocean in two-floor factories like Ms Liao’s Dongguan Yarunli Toys.

“We are helpless,” said Ms Liao, 33, who runs the factory with her older brother. “I don’t know what the next quarter will be like.”

Ms Liao is one of millions of people in China who sew, cut, build and assemble the toys, clothes, tools and cars that Americans use every day.

The work they do allows companies to make and sell things to households in the US quickly and cheaply.

With its US$1 trillion (S$1.34 trillion) global trade surplus, China remains the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.

But Ms Liao’s struggles show how Mr Trump’s tariffs, which include a base of 20 per cent on all goods, are challenging a long-held truth in China.

The US may no longer be the main destination for products made by small businesses such as hers.

One of Ms Liao’s customers, who sells toy dolls based on characters from a book, recently asked for a 20 per cent price cut – something she