A joint survey by AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai showed that over nearly two-thirds of survey respondents experienced negative impact from US-China tariff war. Moreover, for additional US tariffs, 74.3% expected negative impact and 47.2% expected “strong negative impact. For additional China tariffs, 67.6% expected negative impact and 38.2% expected “strong negative impacts”. Increased cost of manufacturing (47.1) and decreased demand for products (41.8%) were the to most significant downside of the tariffs.
William Zarit, Chairman of AmCham China said “the White House has threatened to fire the next barrage of tariffs at $200 billion more Chinese goods, expecting with this onslaught, or subsequent ones, China will wave a white flag. But that scenario risks underestimating China’s capability to continue meeting fire with fire.”
Eric Zheng, Chairman of AmCham Shanghai warned that “tariffs are already negatively impacting U.S. companies and the imposition of a proposed $200 billion tranche will bring a lot more pain”. And “if almost a half of American companies anticipate a strong negative impact from the next round of U.S. tariffs, then the U.S. administration will be hurting the companies it should be helping.”
The survey was conducted between August 29 and September 5, 2018. Over 430 companies responded.
