In China, one in all many nicknames for President Trump is Chuan Jianguo. It actually interprets as “Trump the Nation Builder.” My finest translation is “Comrade Trump.” The joke is that Mr. Trump is a patriotic son of China who’s diligently advancing Chinese language pursuits by inflicting chaos in the US.
I discovered about these memes from associates I made final summer season whereas coaching as a service provider in Amazon’s official recruitment middle in Hangzhou and as a Temu vendor in Shenzhen. The businesses are a part of an infinite e-commerce ecosystem that has grow to be central to international retailing and to the worldwide financial system. This ecosystem is deeply rooted in China and contains producers of products, sellers of products on-line, and those that peddle software program and companies to each teams. Amazon, the millennial-cute Etsy, the cut price purchasing app Temu, the fast-fashion retailer Shein and even Google and Meta — all are depending on tens of millions of China-based sellers.
In 2023, Temu, purveyor of an enormous vary of products, from mittens to cellular houses, turned the single largest purchaser of advertisements on Meta, The Wall Road Journal reported final yr, the place its guardian firm, PDD Holdings, is one of the largest consumers of advertisements on Google. (Temu disputes the quantity spent.) Analysts estimated that Shein spent $200 million on Fb and Instagram advertisements in simply the third quarter of that yr.
It might not be such a stretch to say that Amazon is as a lot a Chinese language firm as an American one: Greater than half of its high sellers are in China, and the charges these third-party sellers pay to make use of Amazon’s market are one in all its largest sources of income.
This dynamic explains why the stiff China tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump are unlikely to realize his purpose of returning manufacturing jobs to the US. As a substitute, the tariffs will drive Individuals to pay extra for a similar prosaic items they’ve all the time gotten from Amazon. They may even push the Chinese language Amazon ecosystem to broaden its horizons and, in doing so, strengthen China’s financial energy all through the world.
There are over 100,000 Amazon sellers within the metropolis of Shenzhen, a bustling metropolis simply north of Hong Kong the place the Pearl River estuaries empty into the South China Sea. Many smaller corporations promote abnormal merchandise (plastic water bottles, rubber hoses, Christmas lights) beneath obscure, even weird, model names. Different producers are Goliaths. The Chinese language electronics producer Anker, based in Shenzhen to create alternative laptop computer batteries however shortly realigned to make charging units for electronics, has about 5,000 employees and $3 billion in annual income.
Amazon consumers’ loyalty is often to not anybody vendor, however to Amazon itself. As soon as they arrive at Amazon’s web site, consumers overwhelmingly prioritize what Amazon reveals them first.
Given this, Amazon consumers could not discover the impression excessive tariffs may have on smaller sellers, which are inclined to lack the capital and assets to soak up such instability. Much like what occurred in the summertime of 2021, when Amazon abruptly suspended tens of 1000’s of Chinese language shops it suspected of shopping for pretend critiques, the businesses that fail can be swiftly changed and forgotten.
American consumers usually tend to discover greater costs for his or her items. The overwhelming majority of Amazon merchandise, as an illustration, are made in China. Many American Amazon sellers supply their merchandise there. They, like their China-based counterparts, will ultimately be forced to boost their costs as a result of they’ve such low revenue margins as it’s.
Most economists dismiss the concept the tariffs will assist convey manufacturing jobs again to the US. Some query whether or not America ought to even try to attract them again. The Chinese language authorities has spent many years making large investments in training, infrastructure and analysis. And whereas the price of Chinese language labor has gone up, it’s nonetheless considerably decrease than the price of American labor. Exemptions announced over the weekend for smartphones, computer systems and different electronics — promptly adopted by cautions that they could be non permanent — have brought about extra chaos and consternation.
Over the medium to long run, American tariffs may gain advantage China. There may be evidence that many Chinese language sellers keep away from tariffs by using third-party corporations that conceal the complete worth of their items or their place of birth. Goldman Sachs estimates that such practices helped Chinese language companies evade $110 billion to $130 billion in tariffs from the primary Trump administration. Many American sellers who import from China say these sleights of hand put them at an obstacle. And if the tariffs push the US right into a recession, shoppers can be seeking to save, a shift prone to profit Shenzhen’s many Amazon sellers who specialise in cheap items.
Plus, tariffs create a powerful incentive for Chinese language sellers to attempt to promote their items elsewhere. For the previous two years, their authorities has been calling on companies to chuhai, or go international, and increase to Africa, Latin America, and Central and Southeast Asia.
Amazon launched a particular form of globalization that made the Shenzhen ecosystem attainable. And because the tariffs drive China to globalize in the remainder of the world, this ecosystem, which depends on Amazon’s large platform and knowledge for its survival, can prepared the ground. There’s a purpose the Chinese language authorities partnered intently with Amazon for the previous 10 years.
Chinese language sellers’ international push may even most probably profit from advances in synthetic intelligence that can enable producers to provide and handle extra merchandise, translate their promoting into completely different languages and analysis new abroad markets extra successfully than ever earlier than.
Prior to now, sudden disruptions to China’s international e-commerce business have accelerated innovation. In Shenzhen, Amazon’s 2021 mass suspension of accounts nonetheless appears like an energetic trauma. One businessman who advised me about it after I visited final summer season virtually wept. But it surely was additionally a key purpose that many retailers migrated to Temu because it started pouring cash into increasing into the US. Temu launched in September 2022. By the top of 2024, analysts estimated that Temu had bought over $50 billion of products, and Apple confirmed that Temu’s app was the yr’s most downloaded on iPhones in the US; based on Comparable Net, an information analytics platform, in February 2025, Temu’s U. S. web site received virtually one billion visits.
Then there’s the Trump administration’s resolution to finish an exemption that has lengthy allowed e-commerce companies to ship packages price lower than $800 into the U.S. duty-free. Though the shift will harm on-line sellers like Temu specializing in promoting cheap items, the corporate anticipated the change and had already begun encouraging retailers to ship bigger shipments to warehouses in the US, quite than promoting on to clients. That’s driving the expansion of Chinese language third-party logistics corporations, usually owned or operated in partnership with associates and relations in the US.
So maybe it is smart that so many Shenzhen retailers appear to admire Mr. Trump as a businessman, if not as a pacesetter. Their affection, as I perceive it, is difficult, as their admiration is now tempered with upset at his new tariff regime. Some inform me that the fondness for Mr. Trump is usually a joke. However many share a way that, nevertheless painful they could be within the quick time period, the tariffs will ultimately spur China to imagine its rightful place because the world’s chief and the beacon of a brand new section of globalization that’s not centered on America.
On Taobao, a Chinese language home e-commerce platform, you should buy a ceramic statue of Mr. Trump to convey good luck to what you are promoting. The unique is named Xi Tian Dong Fo Tu Lan Pu: Trump, the all-knowing Buddha of the West, or Western Heaven. Now, there are knockoffs on Amazon for $45 to $50 from storefronts with names like Nagelbag and DFGHJ. With Comrade Trump at your facet, or solemnly meditating in your dashboard, the long run forward is vivid.
