Yiwu, one of China’s biggest export hubs, was expected to take a hit from US tariffs. Instead, it has seen trade surge
Wang Nan, a hardware trader in China’s eastern city of Yiwu, expected her business to feel some pain when the US-China trade war escalated in April. “Last year, we still had many American clients, but the tariffs changed everything,” she said.
Yet, Wang’s firm not only survived a rollercoaster year – which at one point saw US tariffs soar to triple-digit levels – it has emerged even stronger. An aggressive push to find new buyers in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa paid off. In the end, her export orders rose rather than fell.
“Yiwu does global business and never lives on American business alone,” Wang said.
Similar stories have played out this year across Yiwu – a vast trading hub for wholesale goods often dubbed the “world’s supermarket” – as local exports proved remarkably resilient in the face of US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
Yiwu’s businesses were expected to feel some of the trade war’s sharpest stings. For years, the city in China’s eastern Zhejiang province sold huge volumes of cheap goods to the United States – from Christmas decorations to “Make America Great Again” hats. Despite a slight decline in recent years, nearly 15 per cent of local exports still went to America in 2024.
But in reality, Yiwu has replaced lost American sales with surprising ease. The city’s imports and exports surpassed 700 billion yuan (US$99 billion) in the first 10 months of 2025 – a year-on-year increase of 25.2 per cent and more than the total recorded for the whole of last year, according to local customs data.
Key to this has been a pivot to emerging markets. Trade with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries jumped 51 per cent year on year over the same period, while goods flows with Africa and Latin America surged 21.8 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.
Emerging markets such as Iraq, Iran and countries across South America have become a new engine for Yiwu’s export boom, said Chen Gong, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Anbound.
“These regions are either rebuilding after conflict or undergoing consumption upgrades with limited purchasing power – and Yiwu’s ‘good quality at low cost’ model fits that gap perfectly,” he said.
Many of those markets have a particularly strong appetite for construction materials, household goods and machinery as they push forward with post-war reconstruction and economic development projects, according to Chen.
Unlike other cities, Yiwu’s success was built on “pure market forces” rather than top-down policymaking, giving it a nimble and remarkably dynamic local ecosystem, Chen said. That had helped the city outperform many of China’s largest metropolises this year, he added.
Jiang Tianqing, a hairbrush and machinery equipment trader based in Yiwu, has seen the growing momentum first-hand.
His business had seen sales increase by about 20 per cent this year, driven by fresh orders from countries including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, he said.
“The more conflict there is, the better the business,” Jiang said.
Fresh opportunities overseas as well as favourable policies have helped Yiwu record a 24.4 per cent overall increase in exports in the first 10 months compared with the same period last year.
Local authorities have staged a series of product fairs across Thailand and Vietnam as part of a push to promote the “made in Yiwu” brand.
In November, the city hosted a cultural goods exhibition in Indonesia, which reportedly drew strong interest from regional buyers.
Meanwhile, the signing of the China-Asean Free Trade Area 3.0 agreement in October came just as Southeast Asia’s demand for Chinese goods was accelerating, giving Yiwu’s exporters another boost.
Though Yiwu is best known for exports, its imports are also growing at remarkable speed.
The city has used the same advantages that made it an export powerhouse – such as its advanced logistics network and low delivery costs – to become China’s main distribution hub for goods imported via e-commerce platforms.
In 2019, the city began accepting bonded cross-border e-commerce imports, sparking a boom in inbound shipments. The number of incoming orders rose from 8.7 million in 2019 to more than 60 million in 2023, then over 80 million in 2024.
There are now 121 cross-border e-commerce firms operating in the city, including major platforms Tmall Global and JD International, according to the local customs department.
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Yiwu, one of China’s biggest export hubs, was expected to take a hit from US tariffs. Instead, it has seen trade surge
Wang Nan, a hardware trader in China’s eastern city of Yiwu, expected her business to feel some pain when the US-China trade war escalated in April. “Last year, we still had many American clients, but the tariffs changed everything,” she said.
Yet, Wang’s firm not only survived a rollercoaster year – which at one point saw US tariffs soar to triple-digit levels – it has emerged even stronger. An aggressive push to find new buyers in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa paid off. In the end, her export orders rose rather than fell.
“Yiwu does global business and never lives on American business alone,” Wang said.
Similar stories have played out this year across Yiwu – a vast trading hub for wholesale goods often dubbed the “world’s supermarket” – as local exports proved remarkably resilient in the face of US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
Yiwu’s businesses were expected to feel some of the trade war’s sharpest stings. For years, the city in China’s eastern Zhejiang province sold huge volumes of cheap goods to the United States – from Christmas decorations to “Make America Great Again” hats. Despite a slight decline in recent years, nearly 15 per cent of local exports still went to America in 2024.
But in reality, Yiwu has replaced lost American sales with surprising ease. The city’s imports and exports surpassed 700 billion yuan (US$99 billion) in the first 10 months of 2025 – a year-on-year increase of 25.2 per cent and more than the total recorded for the whole of last year, according to local customs data.
Key to this has been a pivot to emerging markets. Trade with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries jumped 51 per cent year on year over the same period, while goods flows with Africa and Latin America surged 21.8 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.
Emerging markets such as Iraq, Iran and countries across South America have become a new engine for Yiwu’s export boom, said Chen Gong, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Anbound.
“These regions are either rebuilding after conflict or undergoing consumption upgrades with limited purchasing power – and Yiwu’s ‘good quality at low cost’ model fits that gap perfectly,” he said.
Many of those markets have a particularly strong appetite for construction materials, household goods and machinery as they push forward with post-war reconstruction and economic development projects, according to Chen.
Unlike other cities, Yiwu’s success was built on “pure market forces” rather than top-down policymaking, giving it a nimble and remarkably dynamic local ecosystem, Chen said. That had helped the city outperform many of China’s largest metropolises this year, he added.
Jiang Tianqing, a hairbrush and machinery equipment trader based in Yiwu, has seen the growing momentum first-hand.
His business had seen sales increase by about 20 per cent this year, driven by fresh orders from countries including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, he said.
“The more conflict there is, the better the business,” Jiang said.
Fresh opportunities overseas as well as favourable policies have helped Yiwu record a 24.4 per cent overall increase in exports in the first 10 months compared with the same period last year.
Local authorities have staged a series of product fairs across Thailand and Vietnam as part of a push to promote the “made in Yiwu” brand.
In November, the city hosted a cultural goods exhibition in Indonesia, which reportedly drew strong interest from regional buyers.
Meanwhile, the signing of the China-Asean Free Trade Area 3.0 agreement in October came just as Southeast Asia’s demand for Chinese goods was accelerating, giving Yiwu’s exporters another boost.
Though Yiwu is best known for exports, its imports are also growing at remarkable speed.
The city has used the same advantages that made it an export powerhouse – such as its advanced logistics network and low delivery costs – to become China’s main distribution hub for goods imported via e-commerce platforms.
In 2019, the city began accepting bonded cross-border e-commerce imports, sparking a boom in inbound shipments. The number of incoming orders rose from 8.7 million in 2019 to more than 60 million in 2023, then over 80 million in 2024.
There are now 121 cross-border e-commerce firms operating in the city, including major platforms Tmall Global and JD International, according to the local customs department.