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Factories across China are shuttering under the weight of President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff regime, sparking a surge of worker protests and social unrest from Sichuan to Inner Mongolia.
In scenes reminiscent of the 2022 lockdown revolts, workers are flooding streets, demanding backpay and confronting managers over unpaid wages as their employers collapse under economic strain. At an LED plant near Shanghai, thousands shouted at supervisors after months without pay. In central China’s Dao County, employees of a sporting goods company gathered outside the shuttered business after it closed without compensation.
In Tongliao, desperate construction workers climbed rooftops, threatening to jump unless they were paid.
The worker uprisings are fueled by a steep drop in export orders, which recently hit their lowest point since the COVID lockdowns, according to WSJ economic indicators. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate that as many as 16 million Chinese jobs could be lost due to the sharp decline in U.S. trade.
Trump has said the impact is intentional. “They were making from us a trillion dollars a year. They were ripping us off like nobody’s ever ripped us off,” he stated. “They’re not doing that anymore.”
Factory owners say they’re hemorrhaging clients. In southern China, exporter Huang Deming has sidelined 30% of his workers after major U.S. buyers pulled out. Textile manager Qian Xichao told the Wall Street Journal that the domestic market has collapsed into self-destructive price wars: “To be frank, personally speaking, all we can do is go out and look for new opportunities.”
The wave of protests recalls the 2022 anti-lockdown demonstrations, which ended in violent crackdowns by the Chinese Communist Party. Experts warn Xi Jinping is unlikely to tolerate prolonged dissent.
“Xi today has the same mentality as Mao. His bottom line is that no major crisis will be allowed to endanger his hold on power,” a Chinese government adviser told the Journal.