Recently, I received an e-mail from a U.S. electrical products company warning me that, on Oct. 15, the tariff on power supplies and power cords imported to the U.S. from China would increase from 25 percent to 30 percent. Not to worry, the company assured me, it was mitigating the effect of the tariff by moving assembly of its products from China to a new factory in the Philippines.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the Trump administration had in mind when it launched its trade war with China two years ago. According to a survey conducted by the U.S.-China Business Council, 18 percent of U.S. companies either have moved or plan to move operations out of China this year, compared with 10 percent in 2018. Unfortunately, they’re not necessarily moving it back to the U.S.