Trade War with China

The threatened 25 percent tariff hike on an additional 300 billion U.S. dollars worth of Chinese imports would make U.S. consumers pay 4.4 billion dollars more each year for apparel, a study released on Friday showed.

The study estimates the impacts of proposed tariff increases by the United States on categories including apparel, footwear, toys, household appliances, furniture, travel goods and television. It was commissioned by National Retail Federation (NRF), a renowned U.S. retailer association, and was prepared by the Trade Partnership Worldwide.

Low income families would be particularly affected when buying apparel, the study showed. They spend three times as much of their after-tax income on apparel and services as do high-income households.

While U.S. apparel manufacturers would see revenues grow by about 620 million dollars, each new dollar of revenue costs consumers more than 7 dollars in new out of pocket expenses.

"After accounting for domestic manufacturing gains and new tariff revenue, the result is a net 2.2 billion dollars' loss for the U.S. economy, with the burden carried by U.S. consumers," the report said.

Apart from apparel, U.S. consumers would pay 2.5 billion dollars more for footwear, 3.7 billion dollars more for toys and 1.6 billion dollars more for household appliances. The rise in tariffs would also force purchasers of furniture to pay 4.6 billion dollars more, and of travel goods, 1.2 billion dollars more.

As for the toy industry, China is the largest supplier. The report said China accounts for more than 88 percent of the supply of toys to the U.S. market while the U.S. producers are estimated to account for less than 1 percent.

The total value of toy imports from China is 25 times greater than the total value of toy imports from the next largest foreign source of supply, Mexico, said the report.

"Overall U.S. prices for toys generally (from all sources combined) would rise by 17 percent. As a result, U.S. consumers are forced to reduce overall purchases by 32 percent," the report estimated.

As part of monthly consumer surveys conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, NRF has been tracking the public's growing concern over trade disputes between the United States and its major trading partners.

The June survey found 81 percent of consumers are "concerned the ongoing trade war will cause prices to increase," a 12 percent increase since November 2018, according to the federation.

Click to expand...

Many have been taking a close look at whether US tariffs imposed on Chinese goods will lead to a "Bible tax."

Proposed tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese products will affect Bibles and children's books predominantly printed in China, Bloomberg reported, citing company and trade group officials who testified on Tuesday, which was day two of a seven-day hearing on the proposed tariffs. Due to the unique paper and printing technology needed, China is a major producer of some printed materials to meet the demand of the US market.

China holds trump cards in its hand amid the trade war because of its production capacity and advantage in the supply chain. As a country that relies on cost-effective Chinese goods to support the religious beliefs of most of its people, how can the US exclude made-in-China products and win the trade war with China?

Many have realized that cost-effective Chinese goods rein in inflation and benefit low-income US consumers, but less attention has been paid to the fact that made-in-China products are essential to support people's religious beliefs. A debate on the "Bible tax" makes people aware of Chinese goods' significance in the spiritual world of US people.

In the short run, countries outside China can hardly develop a production capacity that is large enough to meet the demand for Bibles in the US. The proposed US duties will likely drive up expenses for churches. Some observers said some religious organizations may no longer be able to afford Bibles.

The US Commerce Department in May placed Huawei on its so-called Entity List, banning US companies from selling parts or software to Huawei without US government approval. Chinese technology companies have felt the pain of the trade war but we believe they can survive without US chips. However, can Christians in the US survive without Bibles? The answer is probably not. Bibles can be found in many American households, schools, hotels and churches. The interesting thing is that the spiritual world of most American people is based on China's industrial capability. It seems it won't be easy for the US to cut its ties to China's supply chain by stirring up a trade war.

Click to expand...

manqiangrexue said:

I'm impressed by everything Huawei does but a rebound can't be this fast, can it? It's only been a few days since Ren said he's not expecting Huawei to return to growth for 2 years. We'll see what the next few months entail; maybe Ren was overly cautious in his estimate.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Huawei says European smart phones sales up 'in past few days'

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By John Miller

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

•June 21, 2019

ZURICH (Reuters) - Huawei smartphone sales in Western Europe have risen "in the past few days" as customers grow more confident the Chinese company will weather U.S. sanctions imposed last month, an executive for the Chinese firm said on Friday.

The reported sales boost follows Huawei's offer of guarantees to that current phones and apps would be supported.

Click to expand...

N00813 said:

LOL. Just checked the Carphone Warehouse, it's still 899 GBP. The last-gen P20 Pro is still 379 GBP. When I can actually buy the P30 Pro for 150 GBP I'll be the first to let you know.

Click to expand...

Arkboy said:

So now the US is thinking about just disregarding patents of companies that it bans.

Click to expand...

chlosy said:

If someone wants to sell their P30 pro at that price, please let me know

Click to expand...

Jura said:

would you please back up with link(s) this sentence:

Click to expand...

Arkboy said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

manqiangrexue said:

The Chinese response should be pretty simple; if the US passes a law that invalidates IP protection for entities on America's government watch-list, then China will have ample justification to invalidate patent protections for companies on China's unreliable entities list. That's going to be a good bit more useful to China's technology drive than the $1 billion Huawei wanted.

Even his facial expression in the article looks like he just realized what I said:

Click to expand...