“The volume is too small. In fact, it’s only this Chinese who buys them. So there’s no way they can create a factory and make it in the US. It’s not big enough,” Tang says. “So certainly they have to import. There’s no way out.”
Tang added that it will take several weeks for taxes to reach retail levels, so consumers will not immediately feel the full impact of the tariffs.
Opened in 1925 and the longest operating facility in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Lum’s Store sources most of its goods from Jingdezhen, a southern Chinese city known for its porcelain. She said she has already seen some of the impact of the tariffs as she received a retroactive invoice this week, which likely includes tariff-related charges for last month’s shipments. And there is a lot of confusion as to how these fees are calculated.
“Our working class community here in Chinatown is undoubtedly hit hardest in these situations at any given time,” Lum said of the owner of a small business in the neighborhood. “And many of them have said the solution to alleviate these situations is to eat those costs and raise prices with Smiggen. …How long can they maintain that?”
Working class families rely on Chinatown for their low cost
The relatively low prices in Chinatowns across the country are primarily intended to serve low-income and working-class families, locals noted. In New York City, the median income of $35,805 for the neighborhood is significantly lower than overall Manhattan income, at $86,553. A few hours away, in Chinatown Philadelphia, the poverty rate is around 32%.
Xu Lin, owner of Bubble Fish, a restaurant in Chinatown, Philadelphia, said tariffs could force the enclave to change its historically low-priced image. Lin said take-out containers and other products, which are at the heart of their daily work, are sourced from China. The consumer pivot to delivery apps has already forced restaurants to fork at a significant expense to these companies, making profits, he said. The price rise caused sales to drop almost immediately, he said. But he has no choice but to raise them further with tariffs.
“A few years after Covid, the majority of our sales still comes from delivery sales,” Lin says. “If the number of takeout containers continues to increase, we will be forced to increase delivery.”
