November 29, 2016

Trumps live up to promise to take US business out of China. . . Just one little problem

Daily News, UK- Donald Trump has pledged to bring long-lost American manufacturing jobs back from China. But he may be too late – even for products that bear his family name. A Chinese company that makes shoes for his daughter’s fashion line is moving production to Africa, where labor is much cheaper.

The billionaire tycoon has frequently accused China of stealing US jobs through unfair trade practices and currency manipulation, while simultaneously relying on the country to make Trump-branded goods. But the kind of work that goes into making such products may never return to America, says the president of major footwear producer Huajian Group. Zhang Huarong, speaking in his office in the southern factory hub of Dongguan, said: ‘Some manufacturers can’t even survive in China any more.’

His company has made about 100,000 pairs of Ivanka Trump-branded shoes over the years, according to spokesman Liu Shiyuan. In August it filled an order for 20,000 pairs, just weeks after Trump accepted the Republican nomination, with a speech in which he vowed to bring jobs back to the US. Trump said he planned to impose a 45 per cent tariff on Chinese-made goods.

Mr Zhang said he can hire five Ethiopians for the price of one Chinese worker. That is why the company is building a ‘light industrial city’ shaped like a woman’s shoe in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, he said.

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