It was 96 degrees in the shade with high humidity and not a breath of wind on Tuesday afternoon in a factory district in Guangzhou, the home base of China’s garment manufacturing.

周二午后，广州的一个闷热的工厂区没有一丝微风，阴凉处都有36度。这里是中国服装制造业的大本营。

The sewing workshops that were operating in one neighborhood were sweltering. But roughly half of the hundreds of factories were dark, with their doors closed and none of their usual bustle. Around the area, bright red signs on walls and poles indicated industrial buildings were available for sale or rent.

某个街区仍在运作的缝纫车间里闷热难耐。但这里的数百家工厂约半数漆黑一片、大门紧闭，没有了往日的喧嚣。周围随处可见红底告示张贴于墙面立柱，都是工业厂房的待售或招租信息。

After exchanging escalating tariffs and export restrictions in the spring, China and the Trump administration moved closer this week to another cease-fire to continue to negotiate over their myriad conflicts. But the new status quo has left high barriers between China’s exporters and some of their biggest markets in the United States.

经历春季关税战升级与出口管制交锋后，本周中美双方再度接近达成贸易休战协议，以便就两国间错综复杂的分歧继续展开谈判。但这种新现状仍在中国的出口商与其主要的美国市场之间设置了高高的壁垒。

Guangdong Province, in southeastern China, and its capital, Guangzhou, have borne the brunt of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. China’s coastal export sector has been hit twice. It is paying tariffs of 30 percent or more on shipments to the United States — extraordinarily high by historical measures — on top of previous tariffs. And And exporters to the United States no longer enjoy duty-free treatment for packages worth $800 or less.

位于中国东南部的广东省及省会广州首当其冲承受了特朗普关税的冲击。中国沿海的出口行业遭受了双重打击。除原有关税外，对美出口货物需支付30%或更高的关税，按历史基准衡量也属畸高。而且，800美元以下包裹免税待遇已被取消。

In Guangzhou, thousands of small factories near the Pearl River used to supply the cheap clothing that e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu shipped to American homes. Streets in the city’s factory districts are less crowded, while managers and workers complain that many orders have evaporated.

在广州，珠江沿岸曾有数千家小型工厂，为希音、拼多多旗下Temu等电商巨头供应廉价服装，这些服装随后被销往美国家庭。如今，该市工业区的街道不再那么拥挤，工厂管理人员和工人都抱怨称，许多订单突然就消失了。

随着美国消费者不再争先恐后地购买希音、Temu等中国电商的商品，广州工厂区的街道也冷清了许多。一些服装厂安装了空调，为了能透光同时不跑冷气，他们在门口挂了塑料布。

Some workers are going door to door and to employment fairs, looking for jobs.

部分工人挨家求职，或奔波于招聘会。

“They are from other factories, or their work is not so good, so they come here with nothing to do,” Lai Changxing, a worker at a factory making dress shirts and T-shirts, said while pouring himself a Coca-Cola and trying to cool off during a work break.

“都是这附近的，都是别的厂，或者生意不怎么好啊，没事做的过来，”一家生产衬衫和T恤的工厂工人赖长兴（音）工休时说，他给自己倒了一杯可口可乐降降暑。

Hu Ke, a worker at another garment factory, said orders had halved since spring. “I’ve been doing this for over a decade,” he said. “It’s definitely not going well this year.”

另一家服装厂的工人胡可（音）说，今春以来订单已减半。“做了十几年了，”他说，“今年肯定是不行的。”

China’s exports to the United States from April through June dropped 23.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the General Administration of Customs in China. Exports of Chinese goods to developing countries have been rising, sometimes for transshipment onward to the United States.

根据中国海关总署的数据，4至6月中国对美出口同比下降23.9%。对发展中国家的出口一直在增长，有些是为了转运到美国。

But Mr. Trump’s tariffs appear to have worsened long-term trends that have already been eroding China’s light industry export sector, as the country shifts toward higher-value industries like electric cars and solar panels.

但特朗普的关税措施似乎进一步加剧了原本已在侵蚀中国轻工业出口部门的长期趋势。随着中国转向电动汽车、太阳能板等高附加值产业，轻工业出口正逐步式微。

At the same time, the storefront factories in Guangzhou face rising costs that are difficult to avoid. Workers are demanding that air-conditioning be installed near the rows of sewing machines and fabric-cutting tables.

与此同时，广州的临街小工厂面临着难以避免的成本上涨压力。工人们要求在缝纫机和裁剪台附近安装空调。

广州的工人们用各种方法避暑。

Until three years ago, few factory owners bothered with air-conditioning, said Li Aoran, the manager of a workshop that makes pajamas, pants and dresses. But as China has grown more affluent, workers have become less willing to endure extreme heat for long hours toiling under rows of fluorescent lights.

一家生产睡衣、裤子和连衣裙的服装厂经理李傲然（音）说，三年前，很少有工厂老板会费心安装空调。但随着中国变得更加富裕，工人们越来越不愿意在荧光灯下长时间忍受酷热。

“Now that people’s living standards have improved, there are higher expectations for better working conditions,” Mr. Li said.

“现在的现在人生活水平有所提高，对生活环对工作环境要求也在提高，”他说。

He paid $3,000 last year to install three large air-conditioners for his clothing workshop. His electricity bill has increased $1,000 a month, adding about 5 percent to his overall costs, he said.

他去年花了20000元为自己的小服装厂安装了三台大型空调。他说，电费每月增加了7000元，使得总成本增加了约5%。

Then his orders plummeted this spring when Mr. Trump began limiting access to the American market. So Mr. Li, like many factory managers, has slashed his payroll. He had nearly 50 workers at the end of last year, and now employs 20.

今年春天，当特朗普开始为进入美国市场设限时，他的订单暴跌。因此，李先生跟许多同行一样大幅裁员。去年底他有近50名工人，现在只剩下20人。

Much of the labor force in factories like Mr. Li’s is made up of migrant workers who often travel long distances from their hometowns to Guangzhou for work. Mr. Li and other managers hired a lot fewer workers this spring after the Lunar New Year holidays, shrinking their work forces mainly through attrition in a sector where laborers often change jobs every three months.

此类工厂劳动力多属外来务工人员，他们往往来自距离广州很远的地方。春节过后，李先生和同行大幅缩减招工，主要靠自然减员来缩减工人规模——在这个行业，工人通常三月跳一次槽。

Even as some factories are still hiring, broad changes in expectations about pay are adding to costs.

即使有些工厂仍在招人，但对薪资预期的普遍变化也推高了成本。

Unskilled workers, who are often younger and doing difficult jobs like ironing finished shirts, are demanding higher wages — at least $1,100 a month, said Yang Daoyong, the manager of a shirt factory. But skilled sewing machine operators, who are typically older and have few other options, are accepting a slight decline in pay, to about $1,400 a month, he said.

一家衬衫厂的老板杨道勇（音）说，现在非熟练工人——通常是年轻人——从事熨烫成品衬衫等辛苦工作会要求更高的工资——至少每月8000元。但他表示，熟练的缝纫工通常年龄较大且就业选择较少，能接受月薪微降至1万元。

负责招聘临时工的广州工厂代表在展示厂里生产的样品。招聘会。除了要求更好的工作条件，广州的一些服装款工人对薪酬的要求也在提高。

Decades of rapid housing construction has resulted in low rents, typically a couple of hundred dollars a month, making it possible for workers to survive on these paychecks while also having enough left over to send to their families. Their paychecks, which include considerable overtime, are still a big change from a quarter-century ago, when wages were often around $100 a month.

几十年的快速住房建设带来了低廉的房租，通常每月数千元，这使得工人们可以靠工资维持生活，同时还有足够的余钱寄给家人。他们的工资包括可观的加班费，与25年前（当时的月薪通常每月约七八百元）相比，有了很大的变化。

Falling prices for finished garments are the biggest challenge for manufacturers, as a glut of production has driven down prices. Mr. Yang said he had lowered the wholesale price for each shirt to $1.40 from $1.67 a year ago. His overall costs keep rising, though, so he tries to sell more shirts at ever thinner profit margins, he said.

成品服装价格下跌成为制造商的最大挑战，生产过剩压低了售价。杨先生已将每件衬衫的批发价从一年前的12元降至10元。然而他说，成本持续上升迫使他只能薄利多销。

“The domestic market is like a rat race,” Mr. Yang added.

“国内市场很卷，”杨先生说。

The fading of China’s sweatshop sector mirrors a rapid shift in the country’s labor force, which is shrinking and becoming better educated. The number of young people turning 18 each year has dropped to fewer than 16 million, from 25.5 million two decades ago. A further decline is coming: The annual number of births has fallen below 10 million in each of the past three years.

中国血汗工厂的式微折射出劳动力结构的迅速转变：劳动力总数缩减，受教育程度却在提高。每年年满18岁的年轻人数量从20年前的2550万降至不足1600万。未来还会进一步下降：近三年，每年出生人口均不足千万。

At the same time, China has rapidly expanded its university system. Two-thirds of the young men and women who turned 18 last year enrolled in a university or college, up from only a fifth in 2005. Unemployment in China has been a deeper problem among recent college graduates, many of whom have had to take jobs as delivery drivers in big cities. Unemployment is less visible among the dwindling ranks of middle-age workers who still toil in Guangzhou’s sewing workshops.

与此同时，中国的高等教育体系急速扩张——去年满18岁的年轻人中，三分之二进入了高等院校，较2005年仅五分之一的比例大幅跃升。但大学毕业生失业问题日益严峻，许多人被迫在各大城市成为外卖骑手；而在广州的小服装厂劳作的日渐缩减的中年工人群体当中，失业现象反而没有那么明显。

Countries like Vietnam have been quick to absorb many of the low-wage jobs now fading away in China.

越南等国已经快速承接了中国流失的低薪岗位。

All of this has workers and managers alike hoping that trade relations with the United States will stabilize soon. “I hope the situation will improve and our business will be better,” Mr. Li said.

所有这一切让劳资双方都希望与美国的贸易关系能尽快稳定下来。“我当然是希望形势变好，我们生意好做，”李先生说。

成衣生产过剩压低了价格，给广州的工厂区带来更多的挑战。