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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Business
Claire Wang in Los Angeles

‘No one’s buying anything now’: how tariffs are striking a blow to historic Chinatowns

people walk through an open-air market
People walk through a market in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles on 21 April 2025. Photograph: Andy Bao/AP

On a balmy afternoon last month, Amy Tran unboxed a delivery at Yue Wa Market, a small grocery and herbal medicine shop in Los Angeles’s Chinatown that she opened 17 years ago.

The package contained two dozen units of Shou Wu Chih, a Chinese herbal concoction known to rebuild kidney function and promote hair health. The shipment arrived two weeks after the US implemented new tariffs on Chinese imports, so her distributor charged her $115, a $35 markup from her previous order.

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