Taichung, Taiwan – When Li Wei took over management of his father’s glassmaking business in Cangzhou in northern China in 2020, he immediately set about optimizing the firm’s operations.

Li moved Hebei Yiyue Glass Products’ sole factory from its location in the city to an area outside Cangzhou, providing better access to key road networks and more space to expand the plant.

At the same time, Li changed the company’s main focus from selling glass components to customers in China to exporting finished glass products to customers abroad.

Today he runs a successful export business that sells cups, pots and jars worldwide and employs twice as many workers as when he took over.

Li owes much of his success to demand for his products in the United States, the destination of 80 percent of his company’s exports in recent years.

But now Li and his colleagues worry that their success could end if former US President Donald Trump is re-elected to the White House on November 5.

Trump, who is running neck and neck in a very close race with Vice President Kamala Harris, has announced plans for tariffs of 60 percent or more on all goods heading to the United States from China.

Economists dubbed Trump’s plans “Tariff War 2.0” after Republican Trump imposed tariffs as high as 25 percent on various Chinese goods during his first term in office, prompting Beijing to announce its own tariffs.

“The US making such a large increase in tariffs will definitely have a huge impact on me and my business,” Li told Al Jazeera.

“This will cause our products to be uncompetitive and our sales, at least in the U.S., will drop sharply.”

Since Trump’s announcement, Li has been working 12 hours a day to identify other export targets that could offset the decline in U.S. business.

So far it has failed to find an alternative to the world’s largest market.

“I’m so busy trying to find solutions, but some days it just feels so bad,” he said. “I don’t like thinking about it most of the time.”

Gary Ng, a senior economist at investment bank Natixis in Hong Kong, said Chinese exporters would have serious cause for concern if Trump re-enters the White House and implements his plans.

“With tariff rates of 60 percent, many Chinese manufacturers will no longer be competitive or make profits from their exports to the US market,” Ng told Al Jazeera.

“This can be problematic, especially for Chinese companies that are exposed to the US market, and they can face a lot of pressure.”

Exporters currently feeling the pressure include Shanghai-based advanced electronic components maker Sotech, according to Dong Sion, the company’s sales manager.

“I was shocked,” Dong told Al Jazeera, referring to the moment he first heard about Trump’s proposals.

More than 90 percent of Sotech products, including smart glasses, are exported abroad, and approximately 30 percent of these exports are to the USA.

“If a 60 percent tariff is imposed, this may disrupt or even completely terminate our business in the United States,” Dong said.

“And we would have to cut our staff.”

For some Chinese companies, additional tariffs could be a fatal blow at a time when conditions in the world’s second-largest economy are already challenging, said Allan Von Mehren, chief analyst and China economist at Danske Bank.

“It will have huge repercussions in China,” von Mehren told Al Jazeera.

The USA is by far the top country in China’s exports, receiving more than $400 billion worth of goods every year.

With trade so at risk, UBS estimates that imposing a 60 percent tariff on top of existing tariffs would reduce China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 2.5 percent over the next 12 months.

Such a blow could come at an inopportune time for the world’s second-largest economy.

A troubled real estate sector, low consumer confidence and household spending well below the global average are weighing on growth, while the country’s traditional investment-led, export-led development model is trying to fill the gap.

Faced with such headwinds, Chinese officials are viewed as unlikely to achieve the government’s growth target of around 5 percent; This challenge will become even more difficult if Chinese exporters lose access to the US market due to new tariffs.

Lily Wang, a recent college graduate who works at Li Wei’s glass manufacturing company outside Cangzhou, said she feared the new tariffs, combined with the poor state of China’s economy, would lead to an increase in unemployed workers and worsening workers’ working conditions. are employed.

“Chinese employers are already cutting a lot of things, and I worry that the situation will get worse if trade with the US decreases,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

The real damage that tariffs will do to China’s economy will likely depend on companies’ ability to adapt, Ng said.

“Some companies may try to diversify their export structures or shift their production to other countries and export to the USA from there,” he said.

Some Chinese companies have already taken such measures.

At Hebei Cangzhou New Century International Trade, a building materials company based in Hebei province that sends about 40 percent of its exports to the United States, management is considering teaming up with manufacturers in Indonesia.

“A tariff rate of 60 percent cannot be covered by our export profits,” Vice President Lucy Zhang told Al Jazeera.

“So we are looking at ways to indirectly export to the US instead.”

At the same time, the Chinese government is trying to create new markets for Chinese exporters.

In September, Beijing hosted 50 African countries for the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, which aims to increase Africa’s imports of Chinese products, especially solar panels and electric vehicles.

In addition to being Africa’s largest trading partner, China is also the leading trading partner of most South American countries.

“Beijing has known for some time that relations with the United States will not improve significantly any time soon, and has been trying to give its companies better access to countries where bilateral relations are friendlier,” von Mehren said.

Even as China increases trade with friendly countries, it is unclear whether there will be a replacement for the large volumes of Chinese goods heading to the United States.

In some cases, U.S. restrictions on Chinese imports are quickly being imitated in other jurisdictions.

In May, US President Joe Biden’s administration announced that tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles would be increased to 100 percent, effectively closing the door to the US market.

The European Union announced tariffs of up to 38.1 percent on Chinese electric vehicles the following month.

Since then, Türkiye and Canada have followed suit with similar measures.

“While some countries are taking precautions against Chinese exports, concern among other countries that China’s surplus will flow into their markets may quickly become established and cause them to take action as well,” von Mehren said.

Trump also suggested he would impose high tariffs on Mexico, where Chinese EV companies are considering building new manufacturing facilities to circumvent the tariffs.

“All I do is say, ‘I’ll put in 200 or 500, I don’t care.’ I’ll put a number on where they can’t sell a car,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News earlier this month.

China responded in kind to various trade measures; for example, it launched anti-dumping investigations into European pork and Canadian canola and imposed export controls on rare earths used in semiconductor production.

Although Trump’s tariff increases are aimed at China, they will likely be felt heavily in the United States as well.

In an analysis published in September, the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that the measures would cause a 0.4 percent increase in inflation in 2025 and a 0.23 percent loss in GDP by 2027.

The rise in inflation and GDP losses would double if Beijing retaliates, the think tank said.

Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington DC, said there will be no winner in a new trade war.

“Artificial restrictions or protectionism will only disrupt normal trade flows and the stability of the production and supply chain, which serves no one’s interests,” Liu told Al Jazeera.

Back in Hebei, Li Wei struggles to see any upside to Trump’s plans for consumers or workers.

“But I don’t know; those in power do what they want,” he said.

“And the rest of us pay the price for it.”