Chinese shoppers shrug off tariffs on US pantry staples

Kathmandu: Chinese tariffs on a range of US fruit, vegetables and other pantry staples took effect on Monday but locals at a lively Beijing market largely shrugged off the escalating trade war.

The levies of 10 and 15 % on American agricultural products, which also include meat, grains and cotton, were imposed after US President Donald Trump raised a blanket tariff on all Chinese goods to 20% last week.

Vendors in a downtown market said they weren’t worried about sales despite the potential for higher prices at the check-out.  ‘If prices go up, folks won’t eat imported stuff,’ a fruit seller, surnamed Shi told AFP.

‘The freshness of our domestic products is greater than imported stuff’, said the 31-year-old Shi.  He said he might sell fewer US varieties while offering more options from other countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia. A steady stream of shoppers, mostly retirees, carried bags of meat and produce as they meandered through the market’s stalls.

He Yulian, who was visiting her daughter in Beijing, said she was indifferent about the trade war. She said she cared only about quality, not where a product was from. ‘For regular folks, if we can tell something is imported from the United States, we can try to buy less of it  or not at all ‘ said 65-year-old from Shanxi.

‘Responsibility to ourselves’ , However, He said that for certain products such as milk and infant formula, she preferred imports to their Chinese versions. The Chinese public is no stranger to domestic food safety scandals. One of the most notorious involved milk adulterated with the chemical melamine, which killed six infants and poisoned hundreds of thousands of others in 2008.

Beijing has pledged to do more to tighten food safety regulations in recent years but distrust lingers. In 2022, pork-processing giant Henan Shuanghui apologised after unhygienic work practices such as packaging meat that had dropped on the floor were exposed.

‘It’s not that we’re not patriotic, ‘It’s because we have a responsibility to ourselves’ Beijing’s tariffs took effect on Monday, although they will not apply to goods that left before March 10 as long as they arrive in China by April 12’said Shuanghui.’

Fruit seller Shi said that, while levies were being put in place by both sides, the fight would be better for China because domestic goods would become more powerful,  in the short term, though, he acknowledged that everyday budgets might be hit. “You still need to buy what you need at home ‘ said Shi.

RSS/AFP