In the heart of New York's Chinatown, Christina Seid has been running her family business, an ice cream shop, for nearly half a century. She strives to keep the price of a scoop affordable but faces challenges due to various costs. While the ice cream in the cup uses local ingredients, the cups themselves have a long journey before reaching her store.
“Our cup manufacturer — they are based in California, but then they are printed in Taiwan,” Seid said.
It’s not just the cups. It’s the merchandise, the utensils and the boxes for her ice cream cakes. All of these items, Seid says, are likely impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China. Her distributors are already adjusting.
“They’re trying to keep the prices low, but at the same time, because we’ve done business with them for a long time, we also have to be understanding, because if they have big price increases, we expect it to be passed down to us. We can’t be unreasonable,” Seid said.
President Trump has varied his stance on tariffs, except with China. When tariffs for every other country were reduced to 10%, China saw its rate increase from 34% to 145%.
Some in the immigrant community of Chinatown have noticed.
“I feel targeted,” said Jen, a Chinatown business owner.
Jen has run a store selling Chinese merchandise for six years. She said through a translator that she’s increased prices on some goods but not on other, more popular items that she wants her customers to be able to afford. For those goods, she’s absorbing the cost.
“She’s still ordering the things that she has to, but whatever she can stop ordering for now, she has because, like, whatever can be paused, she’s paused,” the translator said.
The impact is visible in stores like M.D. Ali’s, where at least 60% of his products come from China, and some distributors quickly increased his pricing by as much as 30%.
“I already raised the price because they’re gonna charge me more. Of course, I’m gonna charge more for my customer,” Ali said.
He says he’s still losing money because he hasn’t yet increased the prices for his customers as much as they’ve been increased for him.
“I am an owner, but I’m thinking like I am a customer too. I don’t feel like I’m the owner. If I feel like I’m a customer, that’s why I charge a little less for them,” Ali said.
Those in New York's Chinatown are hoping the trade war is settled before more businesses and customers are impacted.
