Trump imposed fresh 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods last week, on top of levies that were already in place against Washington's biggest economic competitor.

The newly inaugurated president also cancelled a duty-free exemption for low-value packages, a move that could disrupt shipping for major Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu.

But vendors at the sprawling Yiwu International Trade City market complex told AFP that China's well-developed supply chain would help them hold onto American clients and warned that Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods would hurt US consumers.

"There won't be a big impact," said Gong Lichun, who sells cat toys and decorative plates and whose US clients account for up to 30 percent of her orders annually.

"In other countries... factories' order fulfilment speed might not be fast enough, and they are not as experienced as us in designing products," Gong said.

The mood was festive on Tuesday as traders freshly returned from the long Lunar New Year holiday demonstrated product functions to foreign buyers and played with their children in the indoor market's long, alley-like corridors.

Hat seller Lu, who asked to be identified only by his surname, told AFP that he was not worried about the latest conflict after surviving the trade war that marked the previous Trump administration.

"They also raised tariffs (at the time), and costs rose for some time, but that was all digested within one quarter and basically didn't have much impact," Lu said.

- Wait and see -

Some of the Yiwu vendors told AFP they would adopt a wait-and-see attitude during what they expected to be a volatile Trump presidency.

"If (Trump's) tariffs are too much, the public there will feel that prices are too high, so he might end up reducing tariffs," said Wei Xueping, who sells battery-operated dancing toys.

Wei said US orders only made up a small percentage of her exports because it was too expensive to comply with the product standards required by American buyers.

Other small businesses who were already struggling to enter the US market might be completely dissuaded from doing so by Trump's latest moves, she said.

Gong, the cat toy vendor, said she thought Trump might eventually tone down his aggressive rhetoric on China.

"He just took office so he might be trying to say something, but if he calms down, the market's reaction might improve," Gong said.

Sheng Lu, an expert in the global textile trade at the University of Delaware, was less optimistic about Trump-era prospects for smaller Chinese businesses.

"Suddenly losing the de minimis benefits would be devastating for hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses," Lu told AFP last week, referring to the duty-free loophole closed by Trump.

Smaller sellers could now face "significant additional paperwork and due diligence requirements," Lu said.