How Trump’s prices hit a Chinese factory owner: “ we are helpless’ ”

Women in blue fabric hairstyles sew the finish keys on soft pink pigs and orange stuffed foxes, before throwing them on giant lots in the Maria Liao factory in southern China. They will be in a box and shipped to the United States, where many Ms. Liao customers are based.

The factory is quieter than it should be. Orders are broken this year, while Ms. Liao’s customers are hesitating in the face of a succession of prices that President Trump has put on products from China, another cycle will likely come this week. The tasks have turned upside down small businesses in the United States that depend on factories in China to build the things they design and sell.

The prices also affect the other side of the ocean in two -story factories such as Dongguan Yarunli toys from Mrs. Liao.

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

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