Investments in the U.S. from China are one of the biggest casualties of a yearlong trade war.
Chinese foreign direct investments in the United States, including new plants and commercial developments, sank last year to just $5 billion, from $29 billion in 2017 and $46 billion the prior year, according to the Rhodium Group, a New York-based economics research firm with a specialty in China.
In recent years, Zhu has plowed more than $200 million into building two yarn-spinning facilities near Rock Hill, once a bastion of South Carolina’s cotton textile industry. Zhu Shanqing, 53, chairman of the Keer Group, enjoys fishing at a lake outside his home in a Charlotte suburb. The textile entrepreneur says he is in America for the long haul.
Like other states in the South, South Carolina marketed cheaper operating costs and nonunion labor. It also spruced up the port of Charleston and offered a boatload of incentives to lure manufacturers from around the world, including BMW, Samsung and Michelin. He went to work at the state Commerce agency, and in 1999, cracked the China market by persuading Haier Group Corp., a Chinese firm, to bypass Florida and Connecticut and open a refrigerator plant in Camden, a 40-minute drive from Columbia. The $30-million investment created 250 jobs.
Labor costs in South Carolina were more than double those in China, but wages were rising rapidly there. And state and local governments in South Carolina offered Jushi an attractive package: 250 acres of free land; tax credits and rebates; help with worker training and road improvements; and several million dollars in cash grants.The company is partly state-owned, and its U.S. head, William Woo, declined to comment for this article, citing the trade conflict.
Antonio Pringle, 36, was hired as a welder for $18 an hour. He had earned more at welding jobs in Charleston’s shipyards, but the work wasn’t steady.
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