On a recent Tuesday, an employee at Heng Xing Grocery in Chinatown was busy crossing items off an invoice as two deliverymen wheeled in boxes of dried goji berries, red dates and bamboo leaves. Each box had three words in common: “Product of China”.
Bags, bins and jars of medicinal plants and dried seafood lined the shelves from top to bottom throughout the small store — most of them imported specialties that are difficult to find outside of Chinese enclaves like the city’s oldest one, in Lower Manhattan.
“We’re stocking up like our lives depend on it, and people are buying it like their lives depend on it,” the Heng Xing employee said in Cantonese, noting how prices for some goods have already begun to rise. “Everyone’s busy buying, because we might not be able to soon.”
Across Chinatown, cultural mainstays like medicinal herbalists and dried seafood purveyors say they’re already feeling the pressure from President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.
Chinatown herbalists spoke about the impact of tariffs on their small business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
What had started as a 34% tariff on Trump’s “Liberation Day” in early April quickly escalated to 145% — causing confusion, anxiety and disruption for many local businesses caught in the volatile whirlwind of uncertainty.
Some said they’d begun to stockpile goods earlier in the month, while others lack space or capital to do so.
A few said they’ve been experiencing a spike in sales from panic-buyers over the last week, but feared a quick and sharp decline will follow soon as prices rise.
All were concerned whether Chinatown could survive another hit.
Acupuncturist and herbalist Ronald Chen has been in the same Chinatown location for over 30 years, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“It’s so tough right now, especially in Chinatown,” said Ronald Chen, 54, the second-generation owner of Tong Ren Herb Supply on Elizabeth Street, one of the neighborhood’s oldest Chinese medicine clinics. “I think Chinatown’s gonna die.”
Unlike Little Italy, the adjacent neighborhood that’s developed mostly into tourist destinations, Chinatown has remained home to one of the largest, and densest, concentrations of Chinese people outside Asia — even as increasing rents have threatened to push them out.
While stores that cater to tourists near Canal and Mott streets still get decent foot traffic, shop owners who serve mostly the Chinese diaspora in other parts of the neighborhood said they were already struggling to crawl out of the impacts of COVID, which was especially devastating to Manhattan’s Chinatown and its small businesses.
Chinatown herbalists spoke about the impact of tariffs on their small business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Plus, they said, the introduction of congestion pricing in January has given customers from the outer boroughs and New Jersey another reason to patronize businesses in Chinese neighborhoods outside of Manhattan.
The tariffs, they worried, may push their life’s work over the edge.
“This clinic is kind of old — 32 years — but this has been the worst time for us,” said Chen, who estimated he has has lost about half his New Jersey clients since congestion pricing went into effect. “Weekends in Chinatown these days, it’s very quiet. Very quiet. Multiple things are hitting us at once.”
Acupuncturist and herbalist Ronald Chen has been in the same Chinatown location for over 30 years, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Chen said that while his acupuncture practice accounts for roughly half his clientele, the other half pays their visits for herbal remedies — the ingredients of which, other than the American ginseng, all come from China.
Some wholesalers, he noted, have already raised the price of their backstock by 20% to help cover the 145% tariff — which they warned Chen would soon trickle down to small businesses like his.
“If I can hold it, I’ll hold it,” said Chen, who has so far kept his fees unchanged at roughly $40 for a medical consultation and herbal prescription.
Affordability has always been key to businesses like Chen’s, which presents an economical alternative to Western medicine practices that generally require patients to navigate complicated and expensive insurance systems.
Many sellers said they expect wholesale prices to match the 145% tariff in about a month’s time. And by then, Chen said his 50% profit margin wouldn’t even come close to covering the cost of the medicinal herbs, even as one of his wholesalers has offered to help foot some of the bill.
“And then how much should I charge the patient? You tell me,” he said. “Say the cost is about $20, so what does the cost become now? $20 becomes $45. And then plus my original so-called profit — 20 bucks — then it’s gonna be $60 for three days of herbs, Chinese medicine. Those elderly people are gonna kill me right away, man. They’re not gonna come.”
Chinatown herbalists spoke about the impact of tariffs on their small business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
In the meantime, he’s stockpiling as much as he can, though some suppliers have already begun to run out of backstocked goods.
“It’s gonna be finito. I’m telling you man, you can’t make any profit, you can’t even make a living from this,” Chen said. “I’m prepared to roll down the gates for a break and wait for the tariffs to go down again.”
‘Chinatown Will Be a Ghost Town’
Around the corner from Tong Ren, at Ho Foods Mart on Hester Street, worker Kai Sun Ho was only starting to catch a breath from a late afternoon rush that had been pouring in and out of the store.
“The bustle over the last few days — I don’t know where all these people are coming from. When congestion pricing went into effect, the whole Chinatown had quieted down,” Ho said in Cantonese. “Everyone’s out panic-buying now — it’s very intense.”
Kai Sun Ho manned the counter at Ho Foods Mart in Chinatown, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
But Ho said he doesn’t expect the buzz to last, especially if the imports stop coming. From what dried seafood and medicinal plant wholesalers have told him, Ho said, many of them are now nervous about importing goods on the tariff premium, not knowing whether clients down the supply chain could afford the inventory.
“In a month or two, Chinatown will be a ghost town,” Ho said. “Once we sell the rest of what we have left, we won’t be able to sell anything. And all the stores will have to close down.”
East of the Bowery, further from the area’s tourist hotspots, merchants on the edges of Chinatown said business has already been down since COVID as younger Chinese consumers are increasingly spending their money elsewhere.
“All the youngsters are in Queens, in Flushing, in Long Island City, in Brooklyn. It’s just the old immigrants here — and these days they can’t afford much,” said Yan Fen Lei, 40, who helps her sister run Ocean’s Treasure and Herbs Trading Corp in addition to working as a restaurant host five days a week.
Chinatown herbalist Yan Fen Lei spoke about the impact of tariffs on her business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Wholesale prices have already become more expensive than usual, but Lei said all she can do is to take it one day at a time while trying to keep her prices as affordable as possible.
“To stock up on goods like this costs a lot of money. Where would we get this much? And then where would we store it? That’d be an extra cost,” Lei said in Cantonese. “We’re not making any more money. The everyday person has to spend more, and their appetite for purchases is going down. This is the pressure the country is putting on everyday people.”
A few blocks further east on Eldridge Street, Vincent Zhao, the owner of a Chinese medicine store called HK Herbal, turned his phone screen to share a WeChat message he had received from his wholesale supplier.
Chinatown herbalist Vincent Zhao spoke about the impact of tariffs on his business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The message read in Chinese: “Under the impact of the trade war, tariffs are now as high as 145%. To ensure that everyone’s business can operate normally to the greatest degree, please do not stockpile in a craze.”
The wholesaler said it would limit supply to meet the demands of its oldest customers, and that prices would fluctuate daily based on the market.
“It’s an unusual time, we ask for your understanding,” the note continued. “We’re doing everything we can to allocate our resources to face this difficult challenge with you hand-in-hand.”
Chinatown herbalists spoke about the impact of tariffs on their small business, April 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Zhao, for his part, said he’s yet to change the pace of his wholesale purchases and has kept goods coming in about once a week, even as his wholesaler has described to him how others have hurried to stockpile.
“Even people who don’t typically buy that much suddenly buy a lot. But we’re not doing that. We’re just going to buy it when we need it,” said Zhao, who worked his way up from washing dishes when he first came to the U.S. about two decades ago. “How much can I really stock up? One day it’s enough, the next day it’s not. It’s impossible to keep up.”
The 60-year-old said he currently gets about a dozen customers a day — mostly regulars who buy herbal tea packages for about $15 a dose.
“What will be, will be. If things get expensive, they get expensive. If no one comes, then no one comes,” Zhao said. “If we go down, everyone goes down. So I guess that’s that.”
Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.
The post Tariffs Are Bitter Tea for Manhattan’s Chinatown appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
