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Bloomberg
17-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trump's Trade War Is Upending China's Factory Floors
At a factory in southern China, hundreds of assembly-line workers wearing blue caps churn out kitchenware and grilling accessories for global retailers including Walmart Inc. The vast shop floor — almost the size of six soccer fields — is a hive of activity as everything from grill tongs to food storage containers are assembled and packaged. In the break area for office workers next door there's a Silicon Valley vibe: Designers and engineers in black polo shirts play foosball and table tennis, while a barista serves cappuccinos. It's one of four factories in China run by Velong Enterprises, a working partnership that began in 2005 when American Jacob Rothman combined his Shanghai-based trading company with a small factory in southern Guangdong province owned by Iven Chen. Together they've built an operation that designs, develops, manufactures and markets products worldwide. Rothman, 52, jokes that he and Chen, 47, are like a married couple — only better, as they never argue. 'I can't say that about my own marriage,' he says.
AU Financial Review
15-05-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
China-US shipping ‘going to explode' for 90 days
Guangzhou | Hong Kong | Beijing | Jacob Rothman, who has been making kitchenware in China sold by US retailers including Walmart for more than two decades, was 'shocked and elated' when Washington and Beijing reached a truce in their tariff war. But the co-founder of Velong Enterprises said the deal, under which the US agreed to slash additional tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent for 90 days, offered little more than a temporary reprieve. Financial Times
New York Times
14-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Trump's Tariffs Leave No Safe Harbor for American Importers
In a world besieged by turmoil, Jacob Rothman thought he had secured a refuge. Mr. Rothman, 52, grew up in California but has spent more than two decades in China, overseeing factories that make grilling accessories and other kitchen items for Walmart and retailers around the globe. Well before the rest of the business world, he grasped the pressures bearing on the relationship between his native country and the one where he runs his business. President Trump used his first term to impose tariffs on imports from China. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. advanced that policy. The pandemic exposed the pitfalls of American reliance on Chinese factories for an array of goods, from parts for ventilators to basic medicines. Mr. Rothman and his company, Velong Enterprises, had correctly anticipated demand for alternatives to Chinese industry. He had forged a joint venture in Vietnam, and two more in India. He had set up a wholly owned factory in Cambodia. Come what may, he figured, he could shift production to limit his exposure to tariffs, conflicts and natural disasters. 'I thought I was really ahead of the game,' Mr. Rothman said this week, still absorbing the shock of the one thing he had not seen coming — a veritable tsunami of tariffs that hit dozens of countries at once. 'It's apocalyptic,' he said. 'People don't know what to do next.' Even after the White House last week paused most tariffs on every country except China, Mr. Rothman remained shaken. 'What does 'safe' even mean anymore?' he said. 'With a chaos-first foreign policy, even Southeast Asia may no longer be immune.' He assumed that tariffs could eventually be imposed on the region as the Trump administration treated Southeast Asian as an extension of Chinese business interests. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
