Tariff war rages on TikTok

Browsing online for the latest news here and abroad usually starts my day as I prepare for the daily grind of work at the editorial desk. While half of the world has been past asleep, a lot that happened in the Philippines and elsewhere in the globe were posted already as online news in various social media platforms. So from X, formerly called Twitter, then shifting to Threads, the browser could get streams of news and stories, practically from all over the places.

But what was uncanny last Monday was seeing a lot of TikTok videos of Chinese businessmen and traders with a common message. Chinese producers are everywhere on social media and mostly on TikTok, openly exposing major luxury brands charging up to 100 times the cost to make these luxury items. They all tell about the most famous signature brands supposedly made in Italy, France, in the United States are actually all “Made in China” at very low costs of production.

In short, these TikTok videos tell people to just buy directly from China manufacturers of these “luxury” branded goods at factory prices.

Apparently, the Chinese government has lifted the security clause that previously bound Chinese manufacturers to keep trade secrets of the “luxury” brands they produce. Presenting themselves as Chinese manufacturers of most of these popular “luxury” brands, the videos show production lines of famous signature brands from bags and belts to watches to apparel to electronic gadgets such as laptops and cellular phones.

Obviously, it’s in retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s Executive Order (EO) that, among other things, imposed a 34 percent tariff on all China products and a baseline global tariff on nearly all other countries. But China is not alone in this tariff war with the US. Invoking International Emergency Economic Powers (IEPPA) to combat extraordinary threat, including public health posed by fentanyl drug trafficking, President Trump imposed individualized reciprocal tariffs on countries enjoying the biggest trade surpluses with the US.

Following the initial shock of the world, President Trump suspended the EO’s effectivity for 90 days for refinement, except products from China that were imposed a much higher 125 percent tariff.

In the case of the Philippines, our export products will be charged 17 percent tariff in the US. Evidently, there is not much noise stirred in the Philippines by the higher tariff rates. The US is the biggest trading partner of our country. In 2024, the Philippines exported to the US total value of products worth $12.14 billion. Our country exports a wide variety of products to the US, such as electronic integrated circuits, office machine parts, machinery, copper, coconut oil, fruits and information technology/business process outsourcing services.

The US imposed a 49 percent rate for Cambodia, 46 percent for Vietnam, 36 percent for Thailand, 32 percent for Indonesia, 24 percent for Malaysia and 10 percent for Singapore from zero. Among these member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), it was Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong who came out in social media with his very critical comment on Trump’s imposing a new tariff regime.

As far as Wong sees it, Trump’s EO on higher tariffs has virtually set aside the existing seamless, globalized trading put in place under the World Trade Organization. The WTO was established to liberalize international trade. The US as well as the Philippines were among the first countries that signed and ratified membership to the WTO established in January 1995. China became the 143rd WTO member in December 2001. As of today, there are 166 country-members of the WTO, or 98 percent of world trade.

Nonetheless, the WTO does not stop countries from entering into bilateral and multilateral trading arrangements. The ASEAN has its own AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area) that observes zero tariff among and between these member-states.

Following Trump’s new tariff rules, the ASEAN heads of state, including President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and Wong met via teleconference last week to tackle a joint response to the new US tariff policy.

Initially, the ASEAN ministers already conducted a sit-down meeting on the matter. Malaysia, which chairs the ASEAN this year, is coordinating talks among member-states to explore a common regional approach. Even with the proposed regional response, the Philippines will push through with its plan to negotiate bilaterally with the Trump administration starting next month. Malacañang announced on Monday that Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs Frederick Go will lead the Philippine team to meet with US trade officials in Washington DC.

The Marcos economic team met last week purportedly to discuss how the Philippines will respond with appropriate measures to mitigate any negative impact on the country’s economy and to Filipino consumers, in particular. So far, Go cited the initial estimates by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

“Based on the NEDA estimates, it has a possible effect of 0.1 percent of our GDP (gross domestic product) in the next two years. So, the effect is just slight,” Go noted. He reassured Filipino exporters that the government will engage with them on possible measures to take and provide them the needed assistance.

One enterprising Chinese woman posted on TikTok her tips that encourage reader to go to her online freight forwarding agent, www: gonest.cn. “How do we profit under 145 percent US tariff? Smuggling? No. More safe and legal method is personal shopping service. You can travel to China as agents to purchase products for your American friends and clients. And to avoid tariffs by declaring them as personal items when you return to the US.”

The TikTok videos about the “Made in China” narratives are still going viral.

But yesterday, rebuttal memes started coming out in social media. With more subtlety, the memes warn about being stopped at the Customs X-ray machines in France, Italy and most likely also in the US for carrying “fake” brands of these signature products. Tit for tat.