China's key weapon in global trade war? Its 1.4 billion consumers

Businesses hit by Trump's tariffs hope domestic consumers will pick up the slack

On July 11, Zhuo Peihui learned the profit margins on the wooden furniture he’s been selling to the US for 13 years were about to evaporate. That’s because the dresser drawers and dining tables made by the more than 100 workers at his factory in the Chinese province of Guangdong had landed on Donald Trump’s latest tariff hit list.
 
Trump is betting that punishing penalties on Chinese industry will force Beijing to end trade practices his administration says are unfair. But China has at least one powerful strategy for limiting the fallout of the levies: getting the nation’s 1.4