When the first two rounds of 10% tariffs hit, Zou Guoqing, a Chinese exporter, groaned but didn’t find the barriers insurmountable. He gave up some of his profits and offered his client, a snow-bike factory in Nebraska, price cuts ranging from 5% to 10%. It seemed to work: The factory agreed to a new order of molds and parts.

But when President Donald Trump announced an additional 34% universal tariff on Chinese goods on April 2, Zou, who has been exporting to the United States for more than a decade, was incredulous.

“There’s not a thread of feasibility,” said Zou, who does business in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo. “It looks like I would have no choice but give up trading with the U.S.”

Then came 50% more from Trump, followed by another increase that pushed the universal tariff on Chinese goods to 145%, and Zou said he now could only hope that Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping can communicate. “We are pausing the shipments,” he said, “until the leaders talk.”