‘No one’s buying anything now’: how tariffs are striking a blow to historic Chinatowns
On a balmy afternoon last month, Amy Tran unboxed a delivery at Yue Wa Market, a small grocery and herbal medicine shop in Los Angeles’s Chinatown that she opened 17 years ago.The package contained two dozen units of Shou Wu Chih, a Chinese herbal concoction known to rebuild kidney function and promote hair health.The shipment arrived two weeks after the US implemented new tariffs on Chinese imports, so her distributor charged her $115, a $35 markup from her previous order.Tran said she had no choice but to increase the retail price from $6 to $7.It’s a steep up-charge for her customers, who are primarily Chinese seniors living off food stamps, some barely able to afford to buy a piece of fresh fruit or vegetable.
The tariffs have exacerbated her already dire financial situation.For the past three years, Tran said she had netted no profit, some months not even generating enough sales to cover rent.And she may soon have to raise prices on the dozens of other imported products on her shelves, she said, including an abundance of Asian sauces, dry noodles, ginseng and ointments.But at 58, she sees few other options.“At my age, it’s hard to find work anywhere else,” Tran said in Mandarin.
“I’m just taking it day by day,”Donald Trump’s bruising trade war with China poses an existential threat to immigrant-run businesses in Los Angeles’ Chinatown – as well as historic Chinatowns across the country, from New York City to San Francisco – many of which rely heavily on Chinese imports that have few alternatives in the US,As duties on Chinese products rose to 145%, longtime shop owners, who sell everything from jade stones to traditional medicine, say they are bracing for a financial fallout that could compound losses they have been accumulating since the early days of the pandemic,Robert Lee is the third-generation owner of Jin Hing Company, a small jewelry and antiques shop cloistered on Bamboo Lane, a remnant of Old Chinatown,Lee’s father and grandfather opened the shop in 1933, selling imported valuables like jade bracelets and rings, and antiques dating back to the Qing dynasty, such as porcelain snuff bottles and clay teapots.
Jin Hing imports jewelry from a Chinese supplier once a quarter, and Lee said there was enough inventory for the next few months,But if the current tariffs hold until the fall, Lee said he’ll have to start sourcing jewelry elsewhere – which will be more cumbersome and expensive,“If we didn’t own the building, we’d be in a lot of trouble,” he said,The tariffs also affect his business on the export end, as US customers often shop for antiques to bring back to China,Since China retaliated with duties of up to 125% on US goods, Lee said demand has dropped.
For Lee, 79, the trade war brought back memories of the store’s earlier years,Before President Richard Nixon’s historic China trip in 1972, tariffs were high and trade between the two countries had been very limited,“We couldn’t get anything from China then,” he said, adding that his father could import only from Hong Kong,Community-serving businesses like grocery stores and herbal shops are integral to Chinatown, providing basic goods at low prices to its sizable population of families and seniors, said Laureen Hom, the author of The Power of Chinatown, a close study of the politics that shaped the neighborhood in the early 21st century,“Chinatowns are an ecosystem with a residential, commercial and institutional component that is defined by and serves the Chinese American community,” Hom said.
“When one of those components changes, it has a ripple effect on the others.”The business component has been in decline for much of the past decade, with Chinatown’s last full-service grocery store, Ai Hoa Market, shuttering in 2019 after 30 years in operation.The closure of longtime institutions like Empress Pavilion, a banquet hall that drew mammoth lines for its dim sum, drove down foot traffic, which smaller businesses depended on for survival.In addition to a loss of heritage and history, Hom said, the diminishing influence of Chinatown further shrinks housing and employment opportunities for working-class Asian immigrants in LA, an increasingly unaffordable city to live in.“The tariffs add on to the current uncertainties that Chinatown business owners were already facing for several decades,” Hom said, such as “suburban growth, gentrification pressures from downtown and neighboring areas, and the economic downturn and anti-Asian sentiment spurred by the pandemic”.
Some 12,000 people live in LA’s Chinatown, about half of whom are Asian.The median household income is roughly $36,000, less than half the countywide average.The Chinese community, though smaller than some other enclaves around LA like Monterey Park and Alhambra, is disproportionately working class and elderly.At the same time, Chinatown has undergone significant demographic changes in recent years, said Eugene Moy, a community historian and member of the Chinese historical society of southern California.As the neighborhood gentrified, Moy said, more affluent residents have moved in, enticed by market-rate apartments and newer, upscale businesses and restaurants that are largely inaccessible to working-class tenants.
“There will always be lower-income folks whose incomes cannot keep up with this market economic growth,” Moy said.For Mary Lu Wang, owner of the gift shop Jadetime e-Gifts, these broader demographic changes and continued decline in tourism poses a more immediate threat to her business than the tariffs.Wang, 74, said she used to order new products every month from her brother’s factory in China, but now does it just once a year due to a lack of business.More than a decade ago, she owned three gift shops in Chinatown.She said her shop carries traditional gift items that can’t be found at the dozen other gift shops in Chinatown, like the hand-painted oil paper umbrellas, constructed with bamboo and wood, that are manufactured only at her brother’s factory.
She sells them at wholesale prices, but still few are buying.Last Tuesday, Wang made $27 off a couple of umbrellas; the following day, she made $58.A few years ago, she said she often pocketed $400 to $500 a day.If the tariffs stay at their current rate when her inventory runs low, she said she’ll surely have to raise prices – though she’s not losing sleep over it.“What’s the point of fretting about what might happen in the future?” Wang said in Mandarin.
“No one’s buying anything now.”
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