In early May, I added a jacket for my child to my Amazon cart. Just two weeks later, the price had increased by 12 percent. At this rate, our household could end up spending $5,000 more per year on essential goods alone. This is how the trade war shows up in our everyday lives.
The tariff policy was presented as a way to pressure China and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, but absent a credible industrial strategy it will fail to deliver on that promise. Instead, tariffs raise consumer prices and hurt American workers. Meanwhile, the other victims of this global trade conflict are Chinese factory workers who are facing longer working hours and worsening labor conditions.
I live in New Jersey with my wife and our two children. I am the director of a nonprofit organization, China Labor Watch. If middle-class families like ours are feeling the financial strain, the impact on low-income Americans is even more devastating – especially the 36.8 million people living below the poverty line. These households spend a larger portion of their income on essential items like food, clothing, kitchenware, and electronics – the very goods most affected by rising costs due to tariffs.
The tariffs have only increased financial stress for American workers who are experiencing economic uncertainties and rising prices. In a sign of these pressures, recently, NJ Transit train workers went on strike, demanding higher wages to cope with the rising cost of living. Local train services were suspended for days.
Meanwhile, workers elsewhere in the world endure grueling conditions in a hyper-competitive and unstable labor market. During the “90-day tariff truce,” China Labor Watch’s most recent investigations found that, to preempt Trump’s return to higher tariffs, some factories in China rushed to fulfill orders, with workers laboring 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Employers often withheld wages to discourage workers from quitting, and once orders were completed, workers were likely to be laid off immediately.
This isn’t solely a China issue – it’s a global economic trend with consequences for the local economy. In the U.S., as companies increasingly automate production or shift it overseas, manufacturing employment has been on a 40-year decline. For working class Americans, this has meant fewer job opportunities and more precarious conditions.
Jian Hui was a labor rights advocate in China, helping sweatshop workers fight for better conditions. He is now working in Texas, and the high cost of living means he must work 60-hour weeks in an American clean energy factory alongside 1,000 workers.
“In the U.S., yes, I can quit anytime, and I am earning more,” he told me. “But when the cost of living crushes you, the idea of having a choice [to work or not] is mostly an illusion.”
Workers in America aren’t slacking off; they are desperate.
U.S. workers are now competing with workers in countries where labor standards are weaker and the cost of living is significantly lower. Even as global trade becomes more integrated, protections for workers remain fragmented and confined to national borders. China has capitalized on this dynamic by suppressing labor rights to attract Western investment and absorb advanced technologies, all while providing substantial industrial subsidies to surpass global competitors.
This is perhaps why despite the Trump administration imposing tariffs, we have not seen the revival of domestic manufacturing, nor has China been compelled into meaningful concessions. On the one hand, the United States is in a weaker negotiating position due to the country’s dependence on global manufacturing, especially in China, combined with the pressures from multinational corporations and price-conscious consumers. Take Apple, for example. During both trade wars under the Trump administration, Apple was granted tariff exemptions. Rather than bringing production and jobs back to the U.S., the company instead invested over $1 billion to shift its supply chain to Indonesia and India. Yet 80 percent of iPhone products are still manufactured in China.
In the short term, the United States should lower tariffs on essential goods to ease the financial burden on American families. Most of these products are low-tech and labor-intensive, and their production is unlikely to return to the U.S. anytime soon. Keeping their production in China can also help reduce the risk of large-scale job losses among Chinese workers and maintain global supply chain stability.
At the same time, the United States should increase tariffs on high-tech, non-essential goods. These products tend to have higher profit margins, and higher tariffs could encourage companies to shift more of their production back to the U.S. A more targeted tariff policy would support economic resilience and improve conditions for workers in both countries.
In the long term, revitalizing U.S. manufacturing and improving ordinary Americans’ lives requires a structural solution. Raising global labor standards and ensuring workers have a voice in the global production system is the answer. It also demands calling into question the same system of profit-driven low-cost production that gave China an edge in manufacturing in the first place.
In future trade talks with China, the United States should make labor protections a key demand. As the Chinese government claims to represent workers, such a demand from Washington would be a meaningful moral test, and could help push much-needed reform in global supply chains.
Stagnant wages have forced many American families to rely increasingly on inexpensive goods, which are often produced under exploitative conditions abroad. These harsh labor conditions ultimately create direct competition for American workers. If we continue to tolerate a global system following China’s model of suppressing labor standards and protections to boost its economy, the true cost of these “low prices” will ultimately be borne by both American and Chinese workers. Without reforms where fair labor standards are prioritized, American families will remain trapped in a cycle of rising costs and eroding job quality.