Liu Miao has sold clothing on Amazon to wholesale buyers in the United States for the past five years. That trade has come to an abrupt stop.

过去五年里，刘淼（音）一直通过亚马逊平台向美国的批发商出售服装。如今，那笔生意已经戛然而止。

Mr. Liu owns a small factory in Guangzhou, long the center of China’s highly competitive garment industry. He and other factory managers, already dealing with tight profit margins, said last week that the combination of tariffs and President Trump’s new tax on cheap imports had cut deeply into their businesses. Costs along the supply chain are also higher.

刘淼在广州拥有一家小工厂，中国的服装业竞争激烈，广州长期占据该产业的中心地位。面对本已微薄的利润空间，他和多位工厂负责人上周表示，关税和特朗普总统对廉价进口商品征收的新税已经严重影响到他们的业务。供应链各环节的成本也在持续攀升。

The tariffs have made it impossible for Mr. Liu to continue selling on Amazon, where he previously made about $1 on every garment but now just 50 cents. And he felt he could not cut his employees’ pay, Mr. Liu said, as workers at a labor market crowded past his motorbike, which he had parked on the sidewalk with a dress sample draped over the handlebars.

关税重压下，刘淼已无法继续在亚马逊上销售，以前他每件衣服的利润大约是七块钱人民币，现在只有三四块。他的摩托车停在人行道上，车把上挂着一件样衣，劳务市场的工人正熙攘而过，他说，他觉得自己不能给员工减薪。

“You can’t sell anything to the United States right now,” Mr. Liu said. “The tariffs are too high.”

“现在基本上美国那边没怎么做，”刘淼说。“关税重了。”

Platforms like Amazon, Shein and Temu brought China’s vast manufacturing supply chain to the world’s doorstep. These online marketplaces made it possible for thousands of Guangzhou’s small factories to reach shoppers in the United States. And since packages worth less than $800 could enter the United States tax-free, the factories and, in turn, the platforms were able to charge very low prices.

像亚马逊、希音和Temu这样的电商平台将中国庞大的制造业供应链带到全球消费者的家门口。这些在线市场使广州成千上万的小工厂得以直接接触到美国消费者。由于价值低于800美元的包裹可以免税进入美国，因此工厂和平台得以维持极低的售价。

Exports have been a major driver of China’s economic growth in the past few years. Business has been particularly good in e-commerce. In one Guangzhou neighborhood, foreign luxury cars — Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and Cadillacs — were parked outside factories that pay workers about $60 a day to churn out clothing sold on apps like Shein and Amazon.

在过去几年里，出口一直是中国经济增长的主要动力。跨境电商的生意尤其兴旺。在广州的一个街区，外国豪车——梅赛德斯-奔驰、宝马和凯迪拉克——停在工厂外面，这些工厂付给工人大约450元的日薪，生产在希音和亚马逊等应用程序上销售的服装。

But now as trade tensions force the world’s two largest economies apart, many businesses in Guangzhou are facing a tipping point.

但现在，随着贸易紧张局势迫使世界上最大的两个经济体分道扬镳，广州的许多企业正面临转折点。

广州的一个服装批发和集散地。在对廉价商品的关税豁免结束后，广州的服装制造商对美国的出货量预计将下降。

The tariffs compound multiple challenges facing the garment makers. It is getting harder to make a profit as the Chinese government has struggled to get consumers spending more after the collapse of the country’s property market. Without rising home values, many Chinese people are curbing their spending.

关税加剧了服装制造商面临的多重挑战。在中国房地产市场崩溃后，中国政府一直在努力刺激消费却收效甚微，因此盈利变得越来越困难。由于房产贬值，许多中国民众都在缩减开支。

That hurt business for Zhang Chen, who used to own six clothing stores in the central province of Hubei. But when shoppers didn’t return after the Covid-19 pandemic and rent stayed high, he decided to close them all.

这打击了张晨（音）的生意，他曾在中部省份湖北拥有六家服装店。但疫情过后客源未能恢复，加上租金居高不下，他决定关闭所有门店。

“In 2020, business wasn’t coming back, and in 2021, it still wasn’t coming back. By 2022 when it was still like that, it looked like it was never coming back,” Mr. Zhang said. Now he makes about $100 a day delivering freshly sewn garments to Shein collection points near the airport.

“从2020年熬到头了，2021年也熬到头了，2022年还是这个样子，感觉像看不到头了，”张晨说。现在，他把新缝制的服装送到机场附近的希音收货点，每天能赚700元左右。

The factories in Guangzhou are not the automated ones churning out electric vehicles or the manufacturing campuses making semiconductors that are key to China’s yearslong drive to secure geopolitical resilience through advanced technology. Yet China’s garment factories employ millions of workers hustling to make a living.

广州的这些工厂不是生产电动汽车的自动化工厂，也不是生产半导体的制造园区，而半导体是中国多年来通过先进技术确保地缘政治韧性的关键所在。然而，中国的服装厂雇佣了数以百万计为生计奔波的工人。

在广州一个繁忙的劳动力市场，制衣企业在招聘日工。Temu下属的物流中心。Temu、亚马逊和希音为广州的小工厂开辟了一条直接向美国购物者销售的通道，将中国的供应链带到了他们的家门口。

In interviews, nine factory owners and managers in Guangzhou said they were considering relocating their operations, some to provinces like Hubei, 600 miles away, where they could pay workers lower wages. A few owners said they could possibly move to countries like Vietnam, where many Chinese factories have set up to avoid potential new tariffs as high as those already set on China’s exports.

在采访中，广州的九名工厂老板和经理表示，他们正在考虑将工厂搬迁到约1000公里外的湖北等省份，以降低人力成本。几位企业主表示，他们可能会搬到越南这样的国家——那里已经有许多中国工厂落户，以规避可能出现的、与目前针对中国出口商品所设关税一样高昂的新关税。

Many reported declining orders. Others said they had suspended some production lines. All described watching neighboring businesses shut their doors in the past few months.

许多公司反映订单持续减少。还有的公司表示，他们已经暂停了部分生产线的运转。他们都说，在过去的几个月里，他们目睹了附近的企业关门。

On Friday as the U.S. policy to end tax-free imports from China took effect, Liu Bin packed up his sprawling garment factory where piles of Shein packages pressed against the windows.

上周五，随着美国取消中国商品免税进口政策的生效，刘斌（音）关停了他那座规模可观的服装厂，成堆的希音包裹紧靠着窗户。

Mr. Liu’s factory specializes in dresses and tops meant to be worn to a beach party or a date night, and Shein typically purchases about 100,000 pieces from him a month. But in April, after the company ordered about half that much, he started moving his production line to the neighboring province of Jiangxi. He could no longer afford rent in Guangzhou.

刘斌的工厂专门生产沙滩派对或约会之夜穿的连衣裙和上衣，希音通常每月从他那采购10万件左右。但今年4月，希音只订购了大约这一半的量，随后他开始将生产线转移到邻近的江西省。他已经付不起广州的房租了。

Mr. Liu said that Shein was offering incentives to help cover the cost of moving operations to Vietnam, and he had considered it, “but then the tariffs on Vietnam got even higher, too.”

刘斌说，希音提供了一些搬迁补贴，帮助支付将业务转移到越南的成本，他也考虑过，但“那边的关税比这边的还要贵。”

He said he had also tried to find buyers on TikTok and Temu, but orders were down on every platform. “They’re all falling, and we are only waiting and watching,” Mr. Liu said.

他说他也试着在TikTok和Temu上找买家，但每个平台的订单都减少了。“现在都在掉，然后现在也都在观望，”刘斌说。

出口为中国的增长提供了动力，希音每月从一些供应商那里购买10万件产品。随着中国消费者消费趋紧，工厂在国内的销售将难以达到与出口同样的规模。

Shein did not respond to a request for comment. Temu said on Friday it had stopped shipping products from China directly to buyers in the United States.

希音没有回应置评请求。Temu周五表示，已停止从中国直接向美国买家运送产品。

The Chinese government has been encouraging domestic e-commerce platforms to help small businesses sell to their home market. But with China’s consumers being careful about spending, it will be hard for factories to sell as much domestically as they were exporting.

中国政府正在大力推动国内的电商平台帮助小企业开拓国内市场。但由于中国消费者消费趋紧，工厂在国内的销售将很难达到与出口同样的规模。

Han Junxiu, who sells novelty socks on Shein and Temu, said she doubted that the U.S. government would be able to suddenly start collecting tariffs on low-priced packages, which had been coming into the United States at the rate of four million a day.

在希音和Temu上销售创意袜品的韩俊秀（音）说，她怀疑美国政府是否能够做到突然开始对低价包裹征收关税，这些包裹以每天400万件的速度进入美国。

“I just don’t think it’s that realistic,” Ms. Han said after closing her booth for the night at the Canton Fair, Guangzhou’s annual export trade show.

“我说实话感觉应该是可能不太现实，”在广州的年度出口贸易展广交会上，韩俊秀在结束了当天的参展活动后说。

Fluffy socks for pajama parties are some of her most popular products.

睡衣派对用的毛绒袜子是她最受欢迎的产品之一。

This is exactly the kind of thing Americans will still need to buy from Chinese businesses, Ms. Han said. “Where else are they going to buy all this?” she asked.

韩俊秀说，这正是美国人仍然需要从中国企业购买的东西。“他去哪里买这么多各种各样的产品，对吧？”她问道。