The Financial Times recalled in a recent analytical piece how Chinese companies had spent billions on building manufacturing capacity in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia with the precise purpose of insulating themselves against a potential tariff war initiated by the White House. In fairness, those tariffs are lower than the ones for China, but the so-called transshipment tariffs for goods originating in China but being routed via third countries before getting shipped to the United States are not. This means that Chinese investments overseas, notably in Southeast Asia, would diminish, if not dry up completely, affecting the economies of these countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia, and not in a positive way because there isn’t a line of companies from other countries waiting their turn to pour some billions into, say, solar panel manufacturing capacity in Vietnam.
Author: Irina Slav
Published at: 2025-08-12 23:00:00
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