Simply as president-elect Donald Trump was being voted in on a platform of upper tariffs for China, US businessmen have been hanging offers hundreds of miles away at Shanghai’s largest commerce truthful.

Dynamite, a family-run pet meals enterprise with 12 shops in Idaho, signed $1mn in orders from Chinese language firm Pawberry — a part of a stream of agricultural offers between the 2 nations this week which have up to now amounted to $711mn.

“Sometimes you meet somebody in enterprise you simply click on with — we perceive one another,” mentioned Joshua Zamzow, chief govt Dynamite, of his enterprise associate at Pawberry. “He understands his market, and he’s taking the merchandise that match for the China market and simply blowing them up . . . gross sales have begun to blow up.”

However for companies massive and small, as election outcomes flowed in from Georgia to Pennsylvania, it quickly grew to become clear that the broader relationship between America and China was coming into a brand new period of uncertainty. Trump campaigned on a platform of upper tariffs — 60 per cent on Chinese language items — after a primary time period during which he launched a commerce battle that’s nonetheless raging.

The US election this yr coincided with the annual China Worldwide Import Expo, launched by Xi Jinping in 2018 and a part of the federal government’s makes an attempt to place itself as open to international enterprise. This yr it attracted hundreds of corporations — together with greater than half of the Fortune 500 — in search of to reap the benefits of China’s client market regardless of a tricky financial backdrop.

Daniel Benefield, a consultant of Rad Beverage Worldwide which was advertising merchandise from Texas whiskey distillery Large, mentioned forward of the consequence that he hoped his bourbon merchandise would fly “beneath the radar” of any additional escalation given their low market share.

“If you usher in a giant share of a sure commodity, that’s your goal. That’s why Australia obtained hit large time with the wine, that’s why Europe’s getting hit large time with the cognac.

“They despatched soybeans again to the US, despite the fact that it was on the water,” he added, in reference to Chinese language restrictions on the agricultural product that types a part of a collection of retaliatory strikes, most not too long ago in response to European levies on Chinese language electrical automobiles. He added that his personal imports — he gestures to a container of aged bourbon — have been already topic to important tariffs from China although he noticed a “brilliant future” within the nation.

Throughout the truthful’s tons of of stalls in an enormous exhibition centre, there have been comparatively few People — a mirrored image of a wider decline that has seen international scholar numbers plummet, an exodus of US legislation companies from Shanghai and a normal air of warning amongst US corporations.

“US-China tensions [are] affecting the psyche of funding, there’s simply no query about that,” mentioned Allan Gabor, chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. “Some corporations have taken some strategic selections . . . however this isn’t usually the case,” he added, on the query of whether or not corporations have been leaving.

Longer-term planning in China now faces the prospect of additional surprises. “The largest concern for everyone is the unpredictability of Trump, and what comes out of Trump’s mouth and what really will get executed,” mentioned Kent D Kedl, former head of Management Dangers in China and head of consultancy Blue Ocean Advisors. “The largest threat to enterprise is the unknown.

“The defining factor about China and the US is that it [China] is a home political difficulty within the US,” he added. “I’ve quite a lot of associates who at the moment are world CEOs as a result of they got here by [China], that’s fully reverse now.”

Elsewhere in Shanghai’s exhibition centre, considerations over tariffs weren’t restricted to US-China relations. “Most likely they’ll [increase] tariffs . . . it is going to be more durable for Brazilians to import to the US,” mentioned Caio Livio Germano Alves, an exporter for beef firm Bon-mart of a Trump presidency. In contrast, he anticipated to open extra Brazilian beef websites in mainland China this month. “Our foremost market is China,” he mentioned.

For Zamzow, Trump’s first victory in 2016 made enterprise “more durable” in China however “we discovered a option to nonetheless do enterprise in a significant approach”. “I feel there was numerous apprehension on behalf of Chinese language folks to put money into merchandise and produce them in once they weren’t positive if he [Trump] was going to chop us off,” he mentioned. “I feel they realised and we realised it was OK.”

His relationship together with his Pawberry associate, which got here by way of a Taiwanese intern who was learning at Boise State College Idaho, additionally developed. “He got here to Idaho, and we went taking pictures weapons, that was one thing he’d by no means seen earlier than nevertheless it’s an Idaho cultural factor,” he mentioned. “In case you stroll round this constructing, there are lots of enterprise relations that began the identical as ours, that right now each events are very, very rich, large firms, nevertheless it began as associates”.

All through the constructing in Shanghai, even amid breaking information of the election, the main target was typically far faraway from politics. “For enterprise folks, we care about our fundamental dwelling,” mentioned one carpet salesman from Kashmir, who regarded China as “pleasant” regardless of commerce tensions between India and the mainland that echo strained relations with the US.

“On this room, it’s simply enterprise,” mentioned Zamzow, who added that in his lifetime “virtually no presidents ever do something”. “We simply wish to make good merchandise and purchase good merchandise and promote good merchandise. The remainder of it, it’s TV.”