Women in blue cloth hairnets sew the finishing touches on plush pink piggies and orange stuffed foxes, before tossing them onto giant piles in Maria Liao’s factory in southern China. They will be boxed and shipped to the United States, where many of Ms. Liao’s clients are based.

头戴蓝色无纺布头套的女工们把粉红色的毛绒小猪和橙色的毛绒狐狸缝好后扔到一大堆玩偶上，这些玩具将从玛丽亚·廖（音）开在中国南方的工厂装箱运往美国，廖女士的许多客户都在美国。

The factory is quieter than it should be. Orders are down this year, as Ms. Liao’s customers hesitate in the face of a succession of tariffs that President Trump has put on products coming from China, another round of which will probably come this week. The duties have upended small businesses in the United States that depend on factories in China to build the things they design and sell.

工厂与应有的状态相比过于安静。今年的订单少了，这是因为面对特朗普总统对中国商品接连加征关税，廖女士的客户们犹豫不决，而且本周还将迎来新一轮关税。这些关税已严重影响了美国的小企业，它们依靠中国工厂来生产他们设计和销售的产品。

The tariffs are also reverberating on the other side of the ocean in two-floor factories like Ms. Liao’s Dongguan Yarunli Toys.

这些关税也影响着大洋彼岸，比如廖女士的两层楼工厂——东莞雅润里（音）玩具厂。

“We are helpless,” said Ms. Liao, 33, who runs the factory with her older brother. “I don’t know what the next quarter will be like.”

“我们无能为力，”现年33岁的廖女士说，她和哥哥一起经营这家工厂。“我不知道下个季度会怎么样。”

Ms. Liao is one of millions of people in China who sew, cut, build and assemble the toys, clothes, tools and cars that Americans use every day. The work they do allows companies to make and sell things to households in the United States quickly and cheaply.

美国人日常生活中用的玩具、衣服、工具，以及汽车是像廖女士这样的成千上百万中国人裁剪、缝制、制造、组装的。他们的工作让美国公司能快速廉价地制造产品，并将它们便宜地卖给美国的家庭。

中国是世界制造强国，去年的对外贸易顺差高达7万亿人民币。工人在生产车间对毛绒玩具做最后修饰。

With its $1 trillion global trade surplus, China remains the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But Ms. Liao’s struggles show how Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which include a base of 20 percent on all goods, are challenging a long-held truth in China. The United States may no longer be the main destination for products made by small-businesses like Ms. Liao’s.

中国是世界制造业强国，中国去年的对外贸易顺差高达7万多亿人民币。但廖女士的困境表明，特朗普的关税（包括对所有商品征收的20%基础关税）正在挑战中国人长期以来认为是理所当然的事情。像廖女士这样的小企业生产的产品也许不能再以美国为主要目的地。

One of her customers, who sells toy dolls based on characters from a book, recently asked for a 20 percent price cut — something Ms. Liao said she could not accommodate. She makes a 30 percent profit margin on the goods she produces, a cushion that allows for the fluctuation of costs for material and labor. Such a steep cut in prices would wipe out most of her profit, making it difficult to continue operating, Ms. Liao said.

廖女士的一个美国客户销售以书中人物为原型的玩具娃娃，该客户最近要求她降价20%，廖女士说她无法满足这个要求。她生产商品的利润率是30%，这让她在面对生产材料和劳动力成本波动上有个缓冲。廖女士说，降价20%会让她的大部分利润消失，让工厂难以经营下去。

Still, it wasn’t easy for her to say no. Last year, that customer ordered 25,000 toy dolls, one of the biggest single orders Ms. Liao received. This year, overall orders are down nearly 30 percent, she said.

尽管如此，拒绝对方也并非易事。该客户去年订购了2.5万个玩具娃娃，是廖女士收到过的最大单笔订单之一。她说，今年的订单总量整体上减少了近30%。

For hard-working Chinese businesses that had long tied their prosperity to the demands of American customers, Mr. Trump’s aim to sever trade ties with China is forcing a more urgent question: What next?

对那些长期将自己的繁荣与美国客户的需求联系在一起的勤奋的中国企业来说，特朗普试图切断美中贸易关系的目标已迫使他们面对一个更紧迫的问题：下一步该怎么办？

It is a hard one for Ms. Liao to answer. For starters, American companies make up 30 percent of her export business. She also values the harder-to-measure cultural benefits she has gained from trade with the United States.

这个问题对廖女士来说很难回答。首先，美国公司占她出口业务的30%。她也看重与美国做生意让她获得的难以用金钱衡量的文化益处。

Working with U.S. businesses has changed her outlook on everything from how she conducts business to how she sees her place in society.

与美国企业合作改变了她对各种事物的看法，从如何经营业务到如何看待自己在社会中的地位。

去年，一位客户购买了2.5万个玩偶，这是该制造商最大的一笔订单。今年，订单减少了近30%。廖女士是中国数以百万计生产美国人日常使用的玩具、服装、汽车和工具的工厂主之一。

Ms. Liao started her factory with her brother in 2019 after five years of working in another toy factory and helping to find new customers. She said she had been more reserved when interacting with clients. But then she starting working with American business owners who were direct and open about everything, right down to their personal lives.

廖女士在另一家玩具厂工作了五年并帮助他们寻找新客户，后来于2019年和哥哥一起创办了自己的工厂。她说，在与客户打交道时，她一直比较拘谨。但后来她开始与美国企业主合作，他们对任何事情都很直接和开放，甚至包括他们的个人生活。

One customer in particular has had an outsize influence on her life, Ms. Liao said.

廖女士说，有一位客户对她的生活产生了巨大的影响。

Erica Campbell’s Phoenix-based company, Be a Heart, has been a client of Ms. Liao’s since the beginning. Ms. Campbell’s orders for Jesus and Mary dolls have made up one-tenth of Ms. Liao’s work.

埃里卡·坎贝尔在菲尼克斯的公司Be a Heart从一开始就是廖女士的客户。坎贝尔订购的耶稣和玛利亚玩偶占廖女士产量的十分之一。

In that time, Ms. Liao and Ms. Campbell, 36, each gave birth to their first children. Their personal lives have become intertwined with conversations about business collaborations and product designs. Ms. Liao said it was the first time she had known a woman who juggled family duties and her own business. In their conversations, Ms. Liao said, Ms. Campbell would sometimes describe finding time in the middle of the night to draw a design for the next product.

在那段时间里，廖女士和36岁的坎贝尔都生了第一个孩子。她们的个人生活同商业合作和产品设计的讨论交织在一起。廖女士说，这是她第一次认识一个能够兼顾家庭责任和自己事业的女人。廖女士说，在她们的交谈中，坎贝尔女士有时会描述自己在半夜抽出时间为下一个产品画设计。

Seeing a woman juggle work and home gave her confidence to keep working after her daughter’s birth, Ms. Liao said.

廖女士说，看到一个女人兼顾工作和家庭，让她在女儿出生后有信心继续工作。

A few months ago, Ms. Liao messaged Ms. Campbell to tell her that business was really slow, weighed down by the worsening trade tensions between China and the United States. She was trying to figure out how to keep things afloat. In response, Ms. Campbell shared her own challenges. “I’m flailing,” Ms. Campbell wrote back. One of her employees had just left unexpectedly and Ms. Campbell had recently given birth to her third child. “Motherhood is kicking my butt,” she said.

几个月前，廖女士给坎贝尔发消息告诉她，由于中美之间日益恶化的贸易紧张局势，生意真的很清淡。她在想办法维持。坎贝尔在回复中分享了她自己的挑战。“我在挣扎，”坎贝尔写道。她的一名员工刚刚意外离职，坎贝尔最近生下了自己的第三个孩子。“做母亲让我很辛苦，”她说。

特朗普总统的关税措施正在挑战一个长期存在的事实：美国可能不再是中国小企业的首选市场。对于依赖美国需求的中国企业来说，特朗普政府推动削减贸易关系提出了一个紧迫的问题： 下一步该怎么办？

Then she had an idea. Ms. Liao could take over some of the work that the employee had been doing, sourcing materials and communicating with other factories in China. “She did it so well,” Ms. Campbell said.

然后她有了一个主意。廖女士可以接手这名员工一直在做的部分工作，比如采购材料、与中国其他工厂沟通。“她做得很好，”坎贝尔说。

When Ms. Campbell finally placed her 2025 Christmas production order with Ms. Liao a few weeks ago, it was half the size of her order last year because of the uncertainty over tariffs and a recession, something that Mr. Trump has said is possible.

几周前，坎贝尔终于向廖女士下了2025年圣诞产品的订单，由于关税和经济衰退的不确定性，订单规模只有去年的一半，而特朗普曾表示，经济衰退是有可能发生的。

For now, Ms. Campbell plans to shoulder most of the tariffs and pass some of the cost on to her customers. But if tariffs go above 20 percent, she said, she will have to talk to Ms. Liao about what to do next.

目前，坎贝尔计划承担大部分关税，并将部分成本转嫁给顾客。但她说，如果关税超过20%，她将不得不与廖女士讨论下一步该怎么做。

It will be a difficult conversation. Ms. Campbell said she didn’t feel comfortable asking her Chinese partner to take on costs that Ms. Liao had no control over.

这将是一次困难的谈话。坎贝尔说，让她的中国合伙人承担无法控制的成本让她感到难受。

“We are often dealing with the same small-business stressors and have had to navigate so much,” Ms. Campbell said. “People like to create this divide, but we are the same and were just born in different countries.”

“我们经常面临同样的小企业压力，不得不应付这么多问题，”坎贝尔说。“人们喜欢制造这种分歧，但我们是一样的人，只是出生在不同的国家。”

To Ms. Liao, if everyone raises their costs to soften the blow of tariffs, it could lead to a situation she would prefer not to confront: “We may not be able to serve American customers.”

对廖女士来说，如果所有人都提高成本来减轻关税的打击，可能会导致她不愿面对的局面：“我们可能无法为美国客户提供服务了。”