By Yoko Kubota | Photographs and video by Andrea Verdelli for WSJ

YIWU, China -- At the world's biggest wholesale market in this eastern Chinese exporting hub, American clients have disappeared.

The Americans, or their representatives, used to show up to buy everything from Paw Patrol plushy dolls to Panama hats to toy sniper rifles. The famous Yiwu market here has 75,000 vendors across an area bigger than 1,000 American football fields; no other place sells so much stuff, so cheaply, and for decades, much of it went to the voracious U.S. consumer.

But with President Trump's latest tariffs on China, which surged to 145% last week, very little of the merchandise makes economic sense for American buyers now.

Yet during a visit by a Wall Street Journal reporter, vendors said they were confident they would survive, sustained by sales to other buyers, and a bit perplexed. Where would the Americans get all their sparkly keychains, baseball caps and coffee thermoses now?

For some everyday items, such as socks, they said it might not be easy.

"They could get things from other countries, but I don't know if the other countries can produce them as well as China," said Zhou Li of socks maker Shen Li, referring to the U.S. "China's ability to make stuff is just seriously incredible."

At Yiwu, which has five enormous districts, each with multistory buildings, part of District Four's first floor is dedicated to socks. Most are made in a nearby city called Zhuji, which Chinese state media has called "the sock capital" of the world. One subdistrict of Zhuji produces some 25 billion pairs of socks a year, or about a third of global socks production, state media Xinhua said.

In 2023, China accounted for 56% of American imports of socks and stockings, data from the International Trade Center's Trade Map showed.

Socks are a low-margin item, however. Lowering their prices to offset the 145% American tariffs -- which are paid by the importers -- wouldn't be feasible for sock makers, the manufacturers said. That means importers will need to cut into their profits, ask Americans to pay a lot more, or figure out some other country from which to buy low-cost socks to keep their feet warm and comfortable.

One sock maker at the wholesale market, Zhuji-based Today Vision, usually ships around half a million pairs to the U.S. each year. Orders for the U.S. market stopped coming after tariffs started moving higher this year, said Yang Aihua, who on Friday was waiting to hear back from one overseas client as Trump tariff news kept breaking.

Behind her, a sign displayed an ode to socks, in English: "A pair of socks, warm as spring sun, soft as sheep. The comfort of the toes feels like a gentle embrace...Every day it accompanies you, warm as home."

Today Vision's socks, produced by a couple hundred workers at a plant in Zhuji, are typically priced at around 25 cents or slightly higher per pair, said Yang, 46. About 30% of them go to the U.S., with the rest going to China and other overseas markets. Among Today Vision's models, Americans prefer ones with simple colors and woven with 100% cotton, Yang said.

To reach the feet of Americans, the socks go through several steps. Today Vision receives orders from its customers, usually traders. It then takes around seven to 10 days to produce the ordered socks. Next, the products get shipped by sea, which takes about a month, after which they are sold at major U.S. retailers and online, Yang said.

Other countries, especially Pakistan, Honduras and El Salvador, also make lots of socks, and can likely pick up some of the slack if orders no longer come from China in large volumes.

But China's prices and speed, backed by an army of skilled workers, are hard to beat. American consumers might have to pay more to buy from other countries, and could face capacity constraints if they suddenly shift orders for millions of socks to other places.

It is possible the U.S. could back down or reduce its tariffs. New guidance published late Friday indicated that smartphones, laptop computers, memory chips and other electronics will be exempt from Trump's so-called reciprocal tariffs.

It is also possible Chinese sellers will agree to some discounts to Americans to help keep goods flowing.

For now, though, sock sellers say they can't lower their prices much more to keep selling into the U.S.

Wang Chunyan, a saleswoman at Dajiaozhang, another socks vendor at Yiwu, said her factory relies on the U.S. market for about a third of its revenue. While it might have been possible to deal with a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, she said, the current level, at more than 100%, is impossible.

"There's no way" the company could take the U.S. orders with this level of tariffs, she said.

At the stall for Shen Li, which is based in Zhuji, Zhou said her company produces about 1.2 million pairs of socks a month. It is a family business and relatively small by Chinese standards, with about 20 employees.

Before U.S. orders suddenly dried up recently, Shen Li used to ship about 200,000 pairs to the U.S. every three or four months, Zhou said. Besides plain cotton socks, her buyers that sell to the U.S. typically prefer socks with prints, Zhou said, pointing to her booth's wall filled with hanging samples sporting designs such as full beer glasses, kiwi fruits, bearded Santas and TikTok logos.

"We are just one small factory, not one of those big ones. So imagine how much is produced by the entire Yiwu city -- it means the economic power and the amount of production of the area is really astounding," she said.

For her business, the impact of disappearing orders from Americans will likely be fairly limited, because Shen Li only relies on the U.S. for about 10% of its overall revenue, Zhou said. She said her factory is small but resistant, and that many Chinese companies like hers will hang in despite the Trump tariffs.

"There is just no way there wouldn't be any impact nationwide," she said.

But she emphasized the resilience of Chinese manufacturers as Americans look elsewhere. "We aren't reliant on them. We are reliant on ourselves, " she said.

-- Zhao Yueling contributed to this article.

Write to Yoko Kubota at yoko.kubota@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 14, 2025 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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