TikTok users in the U.S. are being inundated with videos from Chinese influencers encouraging Americans to bypass Trump-era tariffs by buying directly from the “world’s factory”—China.
China textile industry produces around two thirds of the world’s clothes – AFP/Getty Images
Mostly filmed inside Chinese factories claiming to supply leading U.S. brands—from Lululemon Athletica Inc. to Nike Inc.—the videos aim to “expose” how most consumer goods are made in the world’s second-largest economy. Many influencers share website links and contact information, encouraging viewers to place orders directly with suppliers. “Why don’t you just contact us and buy from us? You won’t believe the prices we give you,” said one creator promoting luxury handbags.
In another video, TikTok creator @LunaSourcingChina stands outside a factory she claims produces Lululemon yoga leggings for $5 to $6, even though they retail for over $100 in the U.S. “The material and craftsmanship are basically the same,” she says.
Some of the most popular videos—many posted in March but gaining traction only recently—have been amplified by a clip titled “China exposed the truth,” which had 8.3 million views and 492,000 likes as of Monday morning in New York. A video claiming to reveal Lululemon’s Chinese supplier reached 2.6 million views and over 215,000 likes, while another, titled “How we bypass tariffs,” neared 1 million views with 118,000 likes.
The sheer volume of similarly themed videos surfacing in a short period suggests a growing backlash to President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs, including the newly announced 145% levy on China. While it remains unclear how ordering directly from Chinese suppliers would help consumers bypass the tariffs—especially as the duty waiver for small parcels shipped to U.S. homes is set to expire on May 2—the trend reflects mounting global pushback against the trade measures and the White House’s narrative that they serve American interests.
The flood of posts also highlights the growing effectiveness of Chinese creators in reaching the daily lives of everyday Americans. TikTok’s algorithm—and its ability to shape what millions of U.S. users see—remains a key concern fueling U.S. government efforts to pressure its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd., to divest its international operations. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other Chinese social media platforms—such as Xiaohongshu, also known as Red Note—have also gained traction among young U.S. users amid growing uncertainty over continued access to TikTok.
“These posts are much more confrontational and mocking of the U.S., rather than showing it as a threat,” said Tom Harper, a lecturer in Chinese international relations at the University of East London. He noted that they follow a wave of AI-generated images portraying Americans working on factory assembly lines.
Some of the videos directly criticize U.S. trade policies and call on American citizens to take action. “For decades, your government and oligarchs ship your jobs to China—not for diplomacy, not for peace, but to exploit cheap labor and in the process, they hollow out your middle class, crash your working class, and told you to be proud while they sold your future for profit,” said user @neil778027 in a video. “Americans, you don’t need a tariff; you need a revolution.”
On Friday, the U.S. government announced tariff exemptions on a range of Chinese imports, including electronics, computers, and semiconductors—though it remains unclear how long those exceptions will stay in place. The new exemptions do not cover most of the Chinese-made goods featured in the TikTok videos, such as apparel and accessories.
Many European luxury brands also appear in the videos, though the creators don’t clarify why they’re being included in content aimed at pushing back against U.S. trade policies.
The videos also raise important questions about confidentiality—specifically, whether the featured factories have non-disclosure agreements with their international clients and how this public exposure could impact long-standing relationships between global brands and their manufacturers.
Cameron Johnson, senior partner at Shanghai-based consultancy Tidalwave Solutions, who recently visited the manufacturing hub of Yiwu, sees the trend as part of a broader shift in sourcing practices.
“In the past, you might use a middleman or a trading company to source your products, for your deal with quality control, or go visit the factory, establish those relationships, and then maybe you would come on occasion,” he told Bloomberg TV. “But now what we’re seeing is just a complete democratization of sourcing products.”
Businesses across multiple industries are increasing prices, cutting financial guidance and warning of growing uncertainty as U.S. President Donald Trump‘s trade war pushes up costs, up-ends supply chains and stirs concerns about the global economy.
Ray-Ban
Earning releases on Thursday showed that corporations around the world ran into a wall of uncertainty in the first quarter, as executives found themselves navigating the Trump administration’s constantly shifting stance on trade.
Comments from the biggest packaged food, drinks and consumer goods companies also underscored worries among businesses and investors that Trump’s tariffs and his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hurt confidence on Main Street.
“We will have to pull every lever we have in our arsenal to mitigate the impact of tariffs within our cost structure and P&L,” Procter & Gamble CFO Andre Schulten said on a media call after the Pampers maker announced plans to hike prices to cover the impact of extra costs from the sweeping tariff war.
Nestle CEO Laurent Freixe and Dove soap maker Unilever also flagged weakening U.S. consumer confidence.
Stocks drifted on Thursday and a rebound in the dollar fizzled out as investors tried to pick through the Trump administration’s fast-changing announcements on tariffs and the leadership of the Fed, the U.S. central bank.
While most of the tariffs have been paused for 90 days until July 8, a 10% universal rate and duties on aluminium, steel and car imports remain in place, as do eye-popping levies on goods imported from China, to which Beijing has responded in kind.
The Trump administration will look at lowering tariffs on imported Chinese goods pending talks between the two countries, a source told Reuters on Wednesday.
With the first-quarter earnings season entering its second busy week, companies were counting the costs of the chaos and setting out how they plan to stem the fallout.
P&G, soda and snacks giant PepsiCo and medical equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific, became the latest companies to cut annual profit forecasts, citing trade turmoil. American Airlines withdrew its 2025 financial guidance, mirroring its peers.
Thermo Fisher also warned of the impact of the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to academic research funding.
P&G’s Schulten said pricing and cost cuts were its main means of weathering the storm as changing its raw materials sourcing from China would be difficult in the short term due to lack of alternatives. Almost 30 companies around the globe have either withdrawn or cut their forecasts in the past two weeks, a Reuters analysis shows.
Earlier on Thursday, Hyundai Motor said it had launched a task force to handle its response to the tariffs and moved production of some Tucson crossover vehicles from Mexico to the United States. “We expect a challenging business outlook to continue due to intensifying trade wars and other various unpredictable macroeconomic factors,” the automaker said.
The company is also considering whether to move production of some U.S.-bound cars from South Korea to other locations, it said as it reaffirmed its annual earnings targets.
Hyundai and affiliate Kia, which together are the world’s third-biggest automaking group by sales, generate about one-third of their global sales from the U.S. market and imports account for roughly two-thirds of their U.S. car sales.
Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said nearly 3,000 firms have already made enquiries about its 200 billion yuan ($27.35 billion) fund, announced on April 11, to help exporters sell their products domestically over the next year.
Adding to worries about economic weakness, the German government cut its 2025 growth forecast on Thursday and now sees stagnation instead of a 0.3% expansion as uncertainty from global trade disputes hobbles growth and dampens investment.
And in another sign of ebbing consumer confidence, Essity’s CEO Magnus Groth told Reuters the Swedish tissue maker had seen a drop in demand for hygiene products from hotels and restaurants in North America because people are eating out less and may not be travelling.
That echoed a warning from Chipotle Mexican Grill late on Wednesday that Americans are spending less on dining out due to elevated economic uncertainty, prompting the food chain to cut its sales outlook.
Telecoms equipment maker Nokia flagged a short-term disruption from U.S. tariffs, while Dassault Systemes, which sells software to automakers, airplane manufacturers and defence companies, cut its forecast profit margin due to tariff-related market volatility, knocking its shares.
Nestle and Unilever delivered better-than-expected quarterly sales, but they and their big-brand rivals are easing U.S. price increases to avoid losing American shoppers to retailers’ less expensive private-label brands.
That may help soothe concerns that tariffs will fuel a spike in inflation and slow the U.S. economy, although other companies, including Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, LG Electronics and Interparfums have said they are hiking U.S. prices or may do so.
“As we look ahead, we expect more volatility and uncertainty, particularly related to global trade developments, which we expect will increase our supply chain costs,” PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta said on Thursday.
“At the same time, consumer conditions in many markets remain subdued and similarly have an uncertain outlook.”
American social entrepreneur Sophia Kianni and Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe Gates have teamed up to launch a free iOS app and mobile browser extension designed to transform how consumers shop for fashion online.
Dubbed “Phia”, the AI-powered tool helps users instantly compare prices on the items they’re browsing. Phia’s proprietary price-checking technology, which draws from a database of 250 million secondhand listings, tells users whether an item’s price is high, fair, or typical, and if it’s overpriced, it suggests cheaper identical or similar options.
Phia is compatible with over 40,000 shopping sites and supports fashion purchases across all brands, from Louis Vuitton to Nike, and tailors recommendations based on size, preferences, and shopping behavior. It aggregates listings from leading resale partners including The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective, ThredUp, StockX, eBay, and Poshmark.
The app also allows users to favorite items, build collections, and search across all major resale platforms at once.
Kianni and Gates, co-founders and co-CEOs, conceived the idea for Phia as roommates at Stanford University.
“We, like so many consumers, want to shop smarter and make the most of our money,” said Kianni. “Great secondhand options exist, but they’re scattered across hundreds of websites—and no one has time to search them all. Our patented model solves that pain point by delivering instant price insights and better options to help customers make smarter, faster decisions with their money.”
Phia’s tech was developed in-house by engineers with experience at Pinterest, Meta, Amazon, and other top firms.
“For all its growth, eCommerce hasn’t meaningfully evolved to reflect how consumers actually make decisions,” added Gates. “Shoppers are navigating an overwhelming number of options across retail and resale, often without the tools to confidently assess value. With Phia, we’ve built an AI-powered platform that brings clarity to that process—personalizing insights in real time so users can make smarter decisions instantly. It’s about delivering the right answer, at the right moment, in just one click.”
Skechers on Thursday posted a record-breaking sales quarter for the three months ending March 31, on strong global demand across both wholesale and direct-to-consumer segments.
Skechers
The Los Angeles-based company said first quarter sales grew 7.1% to $2.41 billion, coinciding with a 7.2% increase internationally and a 6.9% increase domestically.
By channel, wholesale sales grew 7.8%, including increases in EMEA, up 13%, and the Americas, up 7.3%, partially offset by a decrease in APAC, down 0.6%. Likewise, direct-to-consumer sales grew 6%, on increases in the Americas, up 9.8% and EMEA, which surged 21.7%. The DTC growth was partially offset by a 4.4% decrease in APAC. Profits dipped slightly, with net earnings attributable to Skechers were $202.4 million and diluted earnings per share were $1.34, compared with prior year net earnings of $206.6 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.33.
“For the first quarter, we delivered record quarterly sales of $2.41 billion, reflecting strong global demand across both our wholesale and direct-to-consumer segments with international sales representing 65% of our business,” said David Weinberg, chief operating officer of Skechers.
“Sales by region increased 14% in EMEA and 8% in the Americas. In APAC, sales decreased 3%; however, when excluding China, sales increased 12%. We believe Skechers has significant growth opportunities in China, and we will continue to invest in product, marketing and infrastructure to expand and support our presence. At the core of our success is our diverse offering of comfort technology products available at accessible prices across a variety of distribution channels. We remain focused on innovation within our established and successful lifestyle collections, growing our high-performance footwear offering, and investing in brand demand creation as we continue to drive future growth globally.”
Looking ahead, the sneaker company withdrew its prior annual 2025 guidance, citing “macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from global trade policies.”
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