As President Trump ratcheted up new tariffs on goods from China to 125 percent this week, the mood in the dusty streets and small factories of southeastern China was a mixture of anger, worry and resolve.

本周，随着特朗普总统将对中国商品加征的关税提高到125%，中国东南部尘土飞扬的街道和小工厂里弥漫着愤怒、担忧与决绝交织的情绪。

Thousands of export-oriented small factories in or near Guangzhou, the commercial hub of southeastern China, have played a central role in the country’s rapid economic development over the past half century. Quick to supply almost any manufactured product at a low cost, they employ millions of migrant workers from all over China.

在中国东南部的商业中心广州及其周边，数以千计出口导向的小工厂在中国过去半个世纪的快速经济发展中发挥了核心作用。这些工厂能够迅速以低成本供应几乎任何制成品，雇佣了来自中国各地数以百万计的农民工。

Now many of these small factories, cornerstones of the Chinese economy, are confronting difficult times. Clothing factory managers fret about a spate of orders from American customers being canceled at the last minute, saddling them with losses. Managers of factories making machinery wonder whether their low costs will help them survive. And workers hope they will still have jobs in the coming weeks and months.

如今，这些作为中国经济基石的小工厂中有许多正面临困境。服装厂的经理们为美国客户在最后一刻取消大量订单而忧心忡忡，这让他们承受了损失。机械制造厂的经理们则在思考，低成本优势能否帮助他们挺过难关。而工人们希望在未来几周甚至几个月里自己还能有工作可做。

A few garment factories that mainly supplied the United States market have already closed temporarily as their owners wait for more clarity on tariffs. Managers of many more factories are now hurrying to find buyers in other countries or chase down customers in China.

一些主要面向美国市场供货的服装厂已经暂时关闭，因为厂主们在等待关税政策能明朗起来。更多工厂的经理们现在正忙着寻找其他国家的买家，或者争取国内的客户。

But China already faced a huge glut of factory capacity even before Mr. Trump began closing the American market this year to many imports from China. Customers elsewhere have demanded ever deeper discounts.

但即便在特朗普今年开始对许多中国进口商品关闭美国市场之前，中国就已经面临着工厂产能的严重过剩问题。其他地方的客户也一直在要求更大幅度的折扣。

Ruinously low prices for manufacturers have become particularly prevalent in the domestic market in China. Many Chinese consumers are now extremely frugal after losing their life savings in the country’s housing market crash.

对制造商来说，低得离谱的价格在中国国内市场尤为普遍。许多中国消费者在经历了国内房地产市场崩溃、毕生积蓄付诸东流后，现在变得极其节俭。

周三，中国广州一家服装厂的工人在熨烫面料。

“The trade war has a huge impact, because if you can’t export, there will be fewer orders for clothing, and there will be nothing to do,” said Ling Meilan, co-owner of a shirt factory on the second floor of a concrete building in a vast warren of low industrial buildings. Workers hunched over sewing machines on long tables under fluorescent lights.

“影响很大，贸易战，因为出口出不了的话，衣服单就少了，就没单做，”凌美兰（音）说。她与人共同经营的衬衫厂位于一座混凝土建筑的二楼，周围是一大片密集的低矮工业建筑。荧光灯下，工人们俯身在长桌旁的缝纫机前忙碌着。

Ms. Ling focuses on the domestic market in China. But some neighboring factories that sell primarily to the United States have already temporarily suspended operations.

凌美兰专注于中国国内市场。但一些主要向美国销售产品的邻近工厂已经暂时停止了运营。

A factory manager down the street who gave only her family name, Yao, said that she mainly supplied Amazon and had already seen a slowing of orders. “If the U.S. tariffs are too high, we can’t do it, and I will definitely switch to other markets,” she said.

同一条街另一家工厂的经理只透露自己姓姚（音），她说她主要向亚马逊供货，而且已经看到订单量在减少。“如果美国的关税太高，我们就做不下去了，我肯定会转向其他市场。”她说。

The recent cancellations of clothing orders have been particularly hard on small factories in Guangzhou. American importers often pay half the cost of garments upfront and the rest later.

最近服装订单的取消对广州的小工厂来说尤其艰难。美国进口商通常会预先支付服装成本的一半，另一半稍后再付。

周三，广州一家服装厂在为电商公司希音生产服装。

Last-minute cancellations without compensation, by importers who do not want to pay Mr. Trump’s tariffs, have left some factories stuck with considerable inventories of everything from garments to handbags, factory managers said. The 50 percent down payments that they have received are not nearly enough to cover their costs.

工厂经理们表示，不想支付特朗普加征的关税的进口商在最后一刻取消订单，没有提供补偿，使得一些工厂积压了大量库存，从服装到手提包等各种产品。他们收到的50%预付款远远不足以弥补成本。

Manufacturers of machinery may be somewhat better positioned to endure tariffs. China so utterly dominates some categories that it has few rivals in other countries.

机械制造商或许在应对关税方面处境稍好一些。中国在某些品类上占据绝对主导地位，在其他国家几乎没有竞争对手。

Elon Li, who owns a small Guangzhou factory that makes low-priced cooking equipment for restaurants and backyard barbecuers, said that he did not worry about the latest American tariffs because all of his competitors were also located in or near Guangzhou.

埃隆·李（音）在广州拥有一家小工厂，专门为餐馆和家庭后院烧烤爱好者生产低价烹饪设备。他说，他并不担心美国最新的关税政策，因为他所有的竞争对手也都在广州或其周边地区。

Manufacturers in Japan, South Korea and Europe make equipment for the same tasks, but they use much more expensive materials and charge up to 10 times as much as he does. Factories in Southeast Asia and Africa have been unable to compete because only China makes low-cost electrical components, he said, fetching a waterproof on-off switch from a factory bench as an example.

日本、韩国和欧洲的制造商也生产同类设备，但他们使用的材料要昂贵得多，售价可以达到他产品的10倍。他说，东南亚和非洲的工厂无法竞争，因为只有中国生产低成本的电气元件。他从工厂的工作台上拿起一个防水的电源开关作为例子。

周三，广州一家小工厂的工人在用压型机生产家用电器零部件。随着中国的机器人成本急剧下降，这家工厂正考虑用自动化设备取代他这样的工人。

Steel, his biggest cost, is much cheaper in China than elsewhere, said Mr. Li, who said he changed his English name from Dragon to Elon after reading a book in 2020 about Elon Musk. China’s property market meltdown has decimated construction in China and left a glut of steel.

李先生说，他的成本中占比最大的是钢材，但在中国，钢铁价格比在其他地方便宜得多。他在2020年读了一本关于埃隆·马斯克的书后，把自己的英文名从“龙”改成了“埃隆”。中国房地产市场的崩溃使国内建筑业大幅萎缩，导致钢铁大量过剩。

The retail price of cooking equipment in the United States is up to eight times the cost of making it in China, Mr. Li said. Tariffs are mostly calculated based on the very low manufacturing cost, before it is steeply marked up in the United States. So even a large tariff — Mr. Trump has now added 125 percent tariffs for Chinese goods in less than three months — may not do much to increase the retail price, since manufacturing costs are such a small part of the final price tag, Mr. Li said.

李先生说，在美国，烹饪设备的零售价格最高可以达到在中国生产的成本的八倍。关税大多是根据极低的制造成本计算的，而这些产品在美国会大幅加价。所以，即使是高额关税——特朗普在不到三个月的时间里对中国商品加征了125%的关税——可能也不会对提高零售价格产生太大影响，因为制造成本在最终售价中所占的比例非常小。

广州一处居民区。

One expense that has not fallen is labor. Managers at five Guangzhou factories all said that they had seen no sign in recent weeks that workers would accept lower wages. A decades-long slide in China’s birthrate has left a national shortage of factory workers, particularly among the young.

有一项支出没有下降，那就是劳动力成本。广州五家工厂的经理都表示，最近几周他们没有看到工人会接受降薪的迹象。中国几十年来出生率持续下降，导致全国范围内工厂工人短缺，尤其是年轻工人。

Decades of nearly continuous economic growth in China have left many manufacturers with an abiding faith that they will somehow overcome the latest difficulties.

中国几十年近乎持续的经济增长让许多制造商坚信，他们一定能以某种方式克服当前的困难。

“Our country is truly becoming stronger,” Ms. Ling said. “Personally, I am quite satisfied and have great confidence in China.”

“我们国家真的越来越强大，你看现在很多外国人觉得我们中国怎么样，反正我是满意度是很ok的，对中国很有信心，觉得我们的国家领导人挺不简单，”凌美兰说。