“The volume is too small, and it’s really only this Chinese population who will buy them. So there’s no way for them to create factories to make it in the U.S. The scale is not big enough,” Tang said. “So it’s certainly the case that they have to import. There’s no way out.”
Tang added that consumers likely won’t feel the full impact of the tariffs immediately, as it takes a few weeks for the taxes to reach the retail level.
Lum’s store, which opened in 1925 and remains the longest-operating establishment in Manhattan’s Chinatown, sources most of its goods from Jingdezhen, a city in southern China widely known for its porcelain. She said she’s already seeing some of the effects of the tariffs, having received a retroactive invoice this week that likely includes tariff-related fees for a shipment from last month. And there’s a lot of confusion around how these fees are calculated.
“Our working-class community here in Chinatown is definitely, in these circumstances, always being hit the hardest,” Lum said of the neighborhood’s small business owners. “And a lot of them have told me that their solution to mitigating these circumstances has been to eat those costs and only raise those prices by a smidgen, just to make sure they’re affordable for the people that frequent their establishments. … How long can they sustain that?”
Working-class families depend on Chinatown for its low costs
The comparatively low prices in Chinatowns across the country are largely meant to serve lower-income and working-class families, locals pointed out. In New York City, the neighborhood’s median income of $35,805 is significantly lower than that of Manhattan as a whole, at $86,553. A few hours away, in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, the poverty rate hovers around 32%.
Xu Lin, owner of the restaurant Bubblefish in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, said the tariffs could force the enclaves to change their historically low-price image. Takeout containers and other goods that are central to everyday operations are sourced from China, Lin said. Consumers’ pivot to delivery apps has already forced restaurants to fork over sizable fees to these companies, cutting into profits, he said. Rising prices have resulted in an almost immediate drop in sales, he said. But he may have no choice but to raise them further with the tariffs.
“Years and years after Covid, a big portion of our sales still come from delivery sales,” Lin said. “If our takeout containers continue to increase, then we’ll be forced to increase our delivery.”
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