China’s economy has been a house of cards for some time now, but President Trump’s tariffs may be knocking that house of cards down. Case in point: Chinese factories are closing down, and Chinese workers are furious. Laid-off Chinese workers are taking to the streets to demand re-employment and back pay.
Protests from furious factory workers in China demanding back pay are spreading across the country after President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports began impacting the communist nation’s economy.
Unrest has been reported across the country as workers have taken to the streets protesting unpaid wages and challenging unfair dismissals following the closures of factories squeezed by US tariffs, according to Radio Free Asia.
Chinese industry leaders, meanwhile, are “extremely anxious” about the steep duties, with many telling factories and suppliers to halt or delay supplies, Wang Xin, head of an industry group representing more than 2,000 Chinese merchants told the Financial Times.
“Extremely anxious” can probably be safely translated as “on the verge of panic.” The problem is nationwide:
At least 16 million jobs across many industries in China are at risk due to President Trump’s imposing of a 145% tariff on Chinese imports, according to analysis from Goldman Sachs.
“It’s not easy at the moment,” a 26-year-old toy factory worker told the FT. His employer, in the Chinese city of Zhejiang, mostly sells to the US, and management recently forced workers to take two weeks off unpaid in the face of the tariffs.
Last month, construction workers threatened to throw themselves off the buildings they were working on unless they received their unpaid wages in the northeastern city of Tongliao, Radio Free Asia reported.
Elsewhere, a sporting goods factory in southern Hunan province also shut without warning last month, offering no compensation or social security benefits, leading hundreds of workers to go on strike, the outlet said.
Paper tiger.