Most US businesses operating in China oppose the use of tariffs in retaliation for the challenges they face, from an uneven playing field to poor protection of intellectual property rights, a survey released yesterday showed.
Almost 69 percent of the 434 respondents in the annual China Business Climate Survey of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai opposed tariffs, while just 8.5 percent backed them, the body said.
“Resolving these challenges in an equitable manner is essential for the United States and China to have a healthy long-term commercial relationship that brings benefits to both our peoples,” AmCham said in a statement on the survey results.
The survey, conducted from April 10 to May 10, reflects the mix of key concerns and realities for US businesses in China at a time of heightened uncertainty as the administration of US President Donald Trump raises the ante in its trade war with Beijing.
Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices that give its firms an advantage, while hobbling US companies and creating an outsized trade deficit for the US.
On Tuesday, the US Trade Representative Office said it would impose 10 percent tariffs on an additional US$200 billion of Chinese imports — from food products to tobacco, chemicals, coal, steel and aluminum.
The survey showed that while US companies continue to face challenges in China, 34 percent of respondents felt Chinese government policies toward foreign companies had improved, up from 28 percent last year.
The number of companies that felt policies had worsened for foreign firms fell to 23 percent from 33 percent, although 60 percent of respondents felt China’s regulatory environment lacked transparency, on a par with last year.
Insufficient intellectual property rights protection and the need to get licenses were the top two regulatory challenges, although slightly fewer companies found both to be a hindrance in this year’s poll compared with that of last year.
To force greater market access, 42 percent of respondents favored investment reciprocity, up from 40 percent last year. However, the number opposing it also grew to 16 percent from 9 percent last year. The number of those unsure rose to 44 percent from 31 percent.
“Despite the relative optimism our members feel guarded about the future,” AmCham said.
Concerns such as government favoritism for domestic firms and pressure on US ones in strategically important sectors to transfer technology were “stoking demand for reciprocity in the US-China trading relationship, even if our members generally oppose the use of retaliatory trade tariffs,” it added.
The biggest operational challenge of all was rising costs, an issue confronting more than 95 percent of respondents, the poll showed.
More than 85 percent of respondents saw domestic competition as a challenge.
The proportion of companies expecting to be profitable was basically flat, at about 77 percent, but firms signaled they were pulling back slightly on investment.
The survey showed 53 percent of companies increased investment last year, down from 55 percent the year before, highlighting a trend of reduced investment growth since a 2012 peak, when 74 percent of respondents said they had boosted investment in China.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary