With soaring tariffs bringing trade between the world’s two largest economies to an effective standstill, many restaurant owners on both sides of the Pacific are grappling with disruptions to their food supply chains.
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In China, the first to feel the pain were high-end restaurants with American steak and Boston lobsters on their menus.
Kurt Wang, a chef at one such restaurant in Beijing, said 30 per cent of its beef was normally imported from the United States.
“Beef is the only ingredient that we sourced from the US,” Wang said. “And it is not just a matter of price hikes – our suppliers have already suspended [imports]. We’re currently looking for alternatives.”
In the US, Chinese restaurants have borne the brunt, with some raising prices and many weighing up whether to follow suit.
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“Prices are rising across the board, with products imported from China seeing even steeper increases,” said Guan Jing, the owner of the Golden Palace Gourmet restaurant in New York’s Flushing Chinatown.
After rounds of tit-for-tat tariff increases between China and the US since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, most Chinese shipments to the US now face new levies of 145 per cent, while American goods entering China are subject to additional tariffs of 125 per cent.