Which Chinese regions are being hit hardest by US tariffs?
Some Chinese provinces have recorded sharp drops in US exports amid the trade war. Others have seen shipments soar as much as 265%
But US tariffs are not affecting China equally. The country is made up of more than 30 provincial-level regions, and there is a wide divergence between these areas both in terms of their exposure to the US market and the effect of the trade war.
This explainer provides a regional-level overview of China’s response to US tariffs – showing which regions are most vulnerable and how local governments and companies are adapting. It is based on calculations and research by economists at CIB Research, a research institute affiliated with the Fujian-based Industrial Bank.
Which regions have the highest exposure to the US market?
China’s export hubs on the country’s eastern coastline dominate trade with the United States. Six coastal regions – Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong and Fujian – together accounted for nearly 80 per cent of China’s exports to the US in value terms during the first seven months of 2025, according to CIB Research.
Following them are a group of landlocked provinces in central and western China: Sichuan, Anhui, Hubei, Henan and Chongqing combined accounted for about 10.8 per cent of the country’s US-bound shipments.
But the sheer volume of exports only tells part of the story. It is a different picture when looking at each region’s exposure to the US market in terms of local exporters’ dependence on US-bound shipments.
Despite not being a major export hub, the northern Shanxi province is actually the most reliant on the American market: 22.5 per cent of the region’s exports go to the US.
Other provinces with a high dependence on US sales include Fujian and Sichuan, where US shipments account for 16.4 per cent and 14.6 per cent of the regions’ total exports, respectively. The national average is 11.8 per cent, CIB Research data showed.
How have different provinces’ US exports been affected since President Donald Trump’s return to office?
Some Chinese provinces recorded steep declines in US shipments in the first seven months of 2025. Yunnan saw exports plunge 71 per cent year on year, while Shanxi and Qinghai logged drops of 47.9 per cent and 39.8 per cent, respectively.
But several regions actually saw exports rise, including Hubei, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Gansu. The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region stood out, with the far-western region’s US shipments soaring by a remarkable 265 per cent year on year.
“The decline in US-bound exports across provinces is related to their dependence on the US market. Overall, regions that were more reliant on the US in 2024 saw relatively larger drops in 2025,” CIB Research analysts said in a note published on Wednesday.
How are US tariffs affecting Chinese exporters in different sectors?
The regional-level data also provides some useful insights into how different industries in China are being affected by US tariffs.
Most provinces have effectively cushioned the fall in US-bound electromechanical exports by expanding into other markets
Electromechanical products make up the bulk of most provinces’ exports to the US. While shipments of these goods to America have fallen this year, this has often been at least partly offset by an increase in exports to the rest of the world, CIB Research noted.
But exporters in light industrial sectors such as furniture, toys and footwear have found it harder to diversify beyond the US market, with most provinces recording declines in exports in these three categories.
Fujian, a major hub for footwear exports with a high dependence on the US market, saw its shoe shipments to the US fall 23.8 per cent year on year in the first seven months of 2025, with overall exports also declining.
Most provinces saw notable declines in exports of “special and unclassified” goods to the US, which mostly refers to low-value, simplified clearance items sold through cross-border e-commerce platforms, the note said.
Fujian, Sichuan and Chongqing saw exports of these goods fall 55.3 per cent, 74.1 per cent and 87.9 per cent year on year, respectively. But Hubei bucked the trend, with exports to the US in this category rising 354.9 per cent.
What else can we learn from the regional data?
CIB Research pointed to a notable shift in China’s consumer electronics sector, where US tariffs appear to be driving manufacturers to move “certain segments of the consumer electronics supply chain” from China to India and Southeast Asia.
Major export hubs – including Guangdong, Jiangsu, Henan, Sichuan and Chongqing – are not only selling more devices to other markets such as Europe and Japan; they are also ramping up shipments of chips and other electronic components to emerging markets.
Henan saw exports of mobile phone parts to India surge more than 10-fold year on year, while shipments from Jiangsu nearly tripled. Chongqing and Anhui recorded massive increases in exports of chips to Vietnam, with shipments up more than 24-fold and 67-fold, respectively.
“Meanwhile, provinces that previously focused on electronics assembly and manufacturing are quickly adapting to the changing global supply chain, increasingly taking on production of intermediate electronic components,” CIB Research said.
Ahead of call with China’s Xi, Trump touches on TikTok deal and extending trade truce
US president says version of TikTok operating in the US will be owned by ‘all American investors’ and companies that ‘love America’
Trump made the comments at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in which Trump said: “We’re pretty close to a deal. We may do an extension with China, but it’s an extension based on the same terms that we have right now, which are pretty good terms.”
The US is getting a “tremendous fee-plus” for making the deal involving the fate of the popular short-video app, Trump added. He also said the version of TikTok operating in the US will be owned by “all American investors” and legitimate companies that “love America”.
Trump and President Xi Jinping are expected to hold a phone call at 9am Washington time (9pm in Beijing) today, according to Bloomberg, and it would mark the first direct engagement between the leaders since June.
On Tuesday, before departing for the United Kingdom, Trump said at the White House that he had reached a trade deal with China and would speak with Xi on Friday to confirm it.
“We made a very good trade deal – and I hope good for both countries – but a very different deal than they’ve made in the past,” he said.
He also said a group of “very big companies” were interested in buying TikTok.
On the same day, Trump extended the deadline for TikTok’s US shutdown – for the fourth time since his second term began in January – until December 16.
The two nations launched trade talks in Geneva in May, agreeing to suspend most tariffs for 90 days. And after a third round of talks in Stockholm in late July, both sides extended the truce for another 90 days.
Last month, Trump said on social media that he had signed an executive order suspending higher tariffs until 12.01am EST on November 10.
The fourth round of talks wrapped up on Monday in Madrid, Spain, where Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent led delegations in two days of negotiations that centred on TikTok.
Chinese envoy calls out Trump administration for eroding institutions, breaking norms
‘Global governance is never about tearing down the current system,’ Beijing ambassador Fu Cong told a UN panel
A senior Chinese diplomat implicated the United States on Monday for holding back developing countries and called on Washington to stop tearing down global institutions.
The comments in New York by Fu Cong, Beijing’s ambassador to the United Nations, did not mention the US by name. But his remarks appeared clearly directed at the administration of US President Donald Trump, with its focus on eroding institutions worldwide and breaking norms.
“Unilateralism, driven by some countries, is wearing its ugly hat and yielding severe blows to the authority and effectiveness of multilateralism,” Fu said at a forum sponsored by Beijing at the UN. “Global governance is never about tearing down the current system.”
Since he was inaugurated eight months ago, Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accord and several UN agencies and undercut US alliances, in keeping with his America-first agenda.
The forum, dubbed “Vision China,” was designed to reflect on the “enduring legacy of World War II” and highlight the importance of “multilateralism and peacebuilding in the 21st century”. This came as global leaders descended on New York to attend next week’s gathering of global leaders at the UN General Assembly.
