Large European firms sidestepping ‘futile’ tariffs, not moving from China to US, survey suggests
- ‘Repetitive swings of the tariff hammer have proven anything but strategic,’ according to EU Chamber of Commerce
- But smaller European companies ‘taking a steady beating’ as a result of tariffs
The survey suggested larger European companies had re-routed or relocated to get around the tariffs. Photo: AP
US
have failed to attract investment to the United States or pressure China into structural reforms, an influential European business lobby group has said after its research suggested large companies had found ways around the charges.
Large European companies operating in China had “effectively sidestepped” tariffs imposed by Washington and Beijing, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said in its latest survey on the tariffs on Monday.
However, its survey of firms found that smaller companies were taking “a steady beating” as a result of tariffs.
“China certainly needs timely and wide-ranging reforms, and the right amount of strategic pressure can help move things in the right direction, but repetitive swings of the tariff hammer have proven anything but strategic,” chamber president Joerg Wuttke said.
“That European companies in China have effectively negated tariff effects in a relatively short space of time only serves to highlight the futility of bilateral tariffs in a global marketplace.”
Wuttke also said that US-China trade talks had yet to resolve structural economic issues in China that had long been a source of complaint from foreign business communities.
Large companies with global footprints had re-routed the origins and destinations of US or China-bound products to avoid the US-China trade border, “rendering the bilateral tariffs ineffective”, the survey found.
The chamber said that many companies were moving production out of China, mostly to Southeast Asia and India, and just as many were increasing investment into China, to move supply chains there for products aimed at Chinese customers.
The survey was conducted from September 12 to 20, after the US imposed 15 per cent tariffs on US$125 billion worth of Chinese products on September 1. The chamber first conducted the survey last year, after the
began.
For imports from the US that had been subject to China’s tariffs, the number of European firms that chose to keep product prices the same was twice as great as those that raised prices to pass the costs along to customers, the survey suggested. The first survey had suggested there was an even split.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3041221/large-european-firms-sidestepping-futile-tariffs-not-moving
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