BEIJING – Chinese manufacturers of goods from tableware to flooring are flagging profit warnings, scrambling to plan new overseas plants or accelerate offshore projects, while haggling with customers over prices as they reel from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Last week, Mr Trump introduced an additional 34 per cent tariff on Chinese goods as part of steep levies imposed on most US trade partners, bringing the total duties on China so far in 2025 to 54 per cent and sending global stock markets tumbling.

While some in China’s corporate sector have put on a brave face and said the tariffs will have little impact on operations and margins, others have revealed through corporate filings emergency plans to curb losses.

For many, Mr Trump’s blanket tariffs threaten to upend supply chains, and navigating the twists and turns of business negotiations and trade policy has become increasingly difficult.

His worldwide tariffs strike Chinese exporters’ two main strategies to blunt the impact of the trade war: moving some production abroad and increasing sales to non-US markets.

“It’s like throwing darts blindfolded. You don’t know what direction you’re going in. You don’t know where the tariffs are going to land,” said Mr Larry Sloven, who has sourced from China for major US retailers for more than three decades.

“Once the hammer drops, you don’t know where the hammer will fall after that.”

Chinese suppliers of low-end goods to US conglomerates that are already operating on razor-thin margins have been hit particularly hard.

Fuling, which sells eco-friendly tableware to US fast-food giants like KFC and McDonald’s, said this week in response to fluctuations in its stock price that Mr Trump’s tariffs would “further negatively impact the company’s operations”.

The company, which was designated a “manufacturing champion” by Zhejiang provincial authorities in 2024, said it would try to launch a new production facility in Indonesia in 2025 that would take over part of the US-facing production in China, but until then the company’s profitability could ...