In rural Houbi, on the sweltering plains of southern Taiwan, low-rise buildings covered in black mesh and studded with big fans extend for nearly 2km in each direction. Tucked into the rice fields, they are barely visible to the passer-by.
This is the home of Taiwan’s other great export success, orchids — much less familiar than the country’s semiconductors but as dependent on the upheaval brought to global trade by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
The Taiwan Orchid Technology Park is the heart of an industry that holds more than 60 per cent of the US market for live orchids. More than 300 mostly small Taiwanese companies shipped overseas a total of 68mn orchid seedlings worth a total US$190mn last year, one-third of which went to the US.
Most of Taiwan’s world-leading chip industry, which accounts for 60 per cent of its exports, remains exempt from Trump’s tariffs for now.
But in Houbi, half an hour’s drive south from where industry leader TSMC is building one of its latest plants, orchid growers say Trump’s tariffs on imports from Taiwan could destroy their livelihoods.
$190mn
Export sales for Taiwanese orchids in 2024
60%
Taiwan’s share of US market for live orchids
1,800
Jobs in Taiwanese town of Houbi
“Our shipments were down by 20 per cent between April, when Trump imposed the universal 10 per cent tariff, and July,” said Lin Feng-pei, a manager at Char Ming Agriculture, a company that cultivates orchid seedlings on 5 hectares of greenhouses in the park.
The 20 per cent “reciprocal” rate on imports from Taiwan that the US set in August is an even worse blow. “Together with the appreciation of our currency, it erases all of our profits,” said Tseng Chun-pi, secretary-general of the Taiwan Orchid Growers Association. “It is hard to get the customers to absorb the extra cost from the tariffs.”
Char Ming said it was still waiting for US customers to place new orders, which would normally have come in by this time of the year. Some buyers have cancelled orders, and others are renegotiating to buy smaller, cheaper seedlings.
That means years of work and investment could go to waste. It takes up to five years for an orchid to grow from germination to mature sprout ready for shipping.
“Due to that time lag, we cannot see the final impact yet, but for sure our Dutch competitors are going to grab a lot of market share from us in the US,” said Lin.
There is no quick fix. Taiwanese growers expect that it will take years to redirect some sales from the US to other markets such as Japan or Australia.
State-owned Taisugar, Taiwan’s largest orchid exporter, is offering smaller growers access to facilities it has built in California so they can avoid Trump’s tariffs by conducting some cultivation onshore in the US.
But the industry says it needs other government support that would make it more competitive.
The Netherlands, the world’s second-largest exporter of cut orchids behind Thailand, has helped its floriculture industry cut costs through energy efficiency programmes.
If Houbi’s orchid farmers were allowed to drill wells to use geothermal energy from a neighbouring hot springs area, they could drastically lower the cost of keeping their greenhouses at the required constant 27 degrees Celsius in winter, Lin said.
For Taiwan as a whole, the orchid industry is tiny: its overseas sales account for 0.04 per cent of the country’s total exports.
But Houbi is certain to feel the pain: the orchid park employs 1,800 of the districts 21,000-strong population.
Kathrin Hille, Taipei
Other Asian industries hit by US tariffs
Focus on Chinese competition for Japan’s lens makers
Lens manufacturers in Japan’s Sabae fear US tariffs will hit sales and open a door for cheaper Chinese rivals.
Inui Lens, which exports 70 per cent of its goods to the US, has fixed prices for January’s range, which it is now manufacturing. But it expects tough negotiations on future models over who should shoulder the costs imposed by a 15 per cent tariff.
“Prices of products will definitely rise in the US, so what we’re scared of is a sales slowdown,” Keisuke Yoshida, sales manager at Inui Lens. “If Americans don’t have disposable income, our products won’t sell.”
He said his company and its customers would try to take on half of the extra costs each.
Inui competes with companies in Italy and Germany but Yoshida sees the biggest risk to Inui’s Made-in-Japan branding advantage is elsewhere.
“Who will become the threat? It’s probably China with its low prices,” he said.
About half of the Y24bn ($163mn) of annual US exports from Fukui prefecture, where Sabae is located, are optical instruments. Manufacturers hope the local prefecture’s subsidy scheme will keep painful job losses out of sight.
Harry Dempsey, Tokyo
Levies put heat under makers of spicy Korean noodles
Trump’s tariffs are throwing cold water on exports of South Korea’s instant noodles, which have boomed on the back of global interest in “K-culture” from pop to films.
Exports of Korean instant noodles reached a record $1.4bn last year. However, ramen exports fell 17.8 per cent in July from a year earlier to $14.2mn, according to Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp.
The pullback comes after exports rose 41 per cent in the first half of this year as US retailers increased orders before tariffs took effect. The US is the biggest export market.
Samyang Foods, the company behind the popular super-spicy Buldak “fire chicken” noodles, said price increases would be inevitable due to US tariffs.
“There is a limit in weathering the pressure,” said a spokesman. “We are in talks with major US retailers about the scope of price increases.”
Samyang generated nearly 80 per cent of its Won1.73tn ($1.2bn) sales last year from overseas markets, with the US accounting for 28 per cent of its exports. The company, which makes all its ramen in Korea, is accelerating its efforts to diversify exports beyond the US and China.
Song Jung-a, Seoul
A $2.5bn threat for India’s shrimp farmers
Shrimp farmers in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh are in “distress” after the tariffs that President Trump imposed on India, said the president of the Seafood Exporters Association of India, Gunturu Pawan Kumar.
He fears that the 50 per cent tariff could kill exports to the US. Those came to $2.5bn in the 2024-25 period, according to India’s Marine Products Export Development Authority — almost two-thirds of India’s shrimp exports.
“Since these tariffs were announced, all the shipments to the US have come to a halt. Most buyers have sent us messages saying ‘please, hold’,” Kumar said.
The livelihoods of 1.4mn Indian shrimp farmers were at risk, he said.
India is the largest shrimp supplier to the US. Kumar believes its closest rivals Ecuador and Indonesia will now step up: their tariffs were set at 15 per cent and 19 per cent respectively.
“For 25-30 years we have put in a lot of hard work into developing this market and establishing the market in the US,” Kumar said. “It will take a lot of time to find alternate markets for our shrimps. It’s not all that easy to find a market for $2.5bn worth of product.”
Andres Schipani, New Delhi
