By The Straits Times | Created at 2025-04-03 11:00:46 | Updated at 2025-04-04 21:39:02
1 day ago
HONG KONG – Across Asia, factory workers, directors, trade associations and analysts are voicing concerns that US President Donald Trump’s stinging tariffs could put jobs at risk and hammer key sectors of industry.
Mr Trump ramped up a global trade war as he imposed sweeping levies on imports into the United States on April 2, sparking worries about what the implications might mean for workers and businesses.
“I can’t eat or sleep well because I keep worrying about losing my job,” said Ms Cao Thi Dieu, who helps make shoes for Western brands such as Nike and Adidas at a factory in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam was hammered with huge tariffs of 46 per cent as part of Mr Trump’s global trade blitz, which sent shares tumbling more than 7 per cent in Hanoi on April 3.
Ms Dieu, 38, feared that the tariffs would impact the job she has been doing for two decades.
“How will I manage if I lose my job? How will I continue earning money each month to take care of my two children’s education?“ she said.
“I only want to stay in the shoe manufacturing job because I don’t know how to do other work.”
Mr Erik Hon, 45, a director at a financial technology firm in Singapore, thought the tariffs would drive up global inflation.
“It is dangerous for everyone to have the most powerful country in the world going back to isolationism and trying to tame (a) China that is inevitably going to take over its world leadership position,” he added.
Ms Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at investment managers Natixis in Hong Kong, warned that the tariffs could backfire.
“The largest loser is the US because everybody’s being taxed, so there’s no escape from higher inflation,” she said.
‘Worst-case scenario’
Ms Chrissy Chan, 48, a business owner in Malaysia, said she was worried that it would cost her more to travel to the US to visit her family.
But she said the tariff rates “do not make sense to me... I won’t be surprised if the Trump admin does another backpedal”.
Mr Chin Chee Seong, president of the SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) Association of Malaysia said the higher tariffs on other countries might give Malaysian firms a competitive advantage.
However, “we import a lot of IT products from the US”, he said.
“If we impose a reciprocal tariff, the end user here will pay more,” he said. “We will suffer. It works both ways.”
Taiwan sought to avoid Mr Trump’s levies by pledging increased investment in the US, more purchases of US energy and greater defence spending.
But Mr Trump unleashed a hefty 32 per cent levy on Taiwanese imports. While the island’s all-important semiconductor shipments were excluded, Taipei described the move as “unfair”.
“The 32 per cent really came as a surprise, and I think our government was caught off guard,” said Mr Jason Hsu, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think-tank and a former legislator in Taiwan for the opposition Kuomintang party.
“The implications are actually pretty big. I think the government has to think deeply about how to deal with Trump in the next four years with a completely new mindset.”
Associate Professor Andrew Kam Jia Yi, who teaches at the National University of Malaysia, expected Taiwan to lobby for more exemptions.
Mr Trump “gives you the worst-case scenario, then batters you down to a deal that you might not want but seems more reasonable than the original threat”, he said. AFP
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