Trump deflates Chinese interest in US property, tourism and education

Four in 10 Chinese are more negative about the US following Trump’s first month as president.

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Donald Trump has damaged Chinese consumer sentiment towards buying US property and stocks, travelling to the US and studying in the US.

This is according to a joint study by China Skinny and Findoout, which surveyed 2,000 consumers across China in late February.

The three categories mentioned above were the most negatively impacted out of 15 studied, with net sentiment declines of 17.7 percent, 13.9 percent and 10.0 percent, respectively.

Food and beverage, mother and baby products and beauty products were the next three most affected categories.

China is America’s largest export market after Canada and Mexico, and the fastest growing of its major trading partners.

President Trump has not been entirely negative for American exporters to China. Although overall Chinese consumer sentiment towards US brands has taken a hit since he was elected, America’s soft power provided a distinct advantage for three categories: movies (up 11.8 percent in net sentiment), music (up 5.4 percent) and media (up 3.5 percent).

This indicates that Trump has piqued curiosity among Chinese consumers regarding overall American culture, said Mark Tanner, managing director of China Skinny. “In an obscure way, that could help American brands.”

“Remarkably, the results were consistent across respondents’ city tiers, genders, ages and professions, signalling that Trump is impacting attitudes in every corner of China,” added Bowei Yu, CEO of Findoout.

The joint survey was conducted online between 21 and 23 February, with the respondents evenly split between male and female, with 56 percent living in tier-one and tier-two cities and 70 percent aged betwen 18 and 35.

		Among those respondents who care:
	Don't Care or Consider	More Positive	Neutral	More Negative	Net Change
General US Sentiment	55.6%	8.1%	50.7%	41.2%	-33.1%
Perception of the following U.S. products and services:
Investments	71.2%	15.8%	50.7%	33.5%	-17.7%
Travel	63.0%	12.1%	61.8%	26.0%	-13.9%
Study	65.9%	14.7%	60.7%	24.6%	-10.0%
Food & Beverage	54.5%	8.9%	72.7%	18.4%	-9.5%
Mother & Baby	57.9%	6.9%	78.2%	14.9%	-8.1%
Beauty Products	57.7%	8.9%	77.1%	14.1%	-5.2%
Health & Pharma	56.6%	9.4%	76.5%	14.1%	-4.6%
Automotive	50.1%	9.4%	77.8%	12.8%	-3.4%
US-Branded Cafes	41.7%	8.7%	79.3%	12.0%	-3.3%
Electronics	41.7%	13.5%	71.0%	15.4%	-1.9%
Fashion & Accessories	50.5%	11.0%	77.2%	11.8%	-0.8%
Sport	54.2%	13.3%	74.9%	11.8%	1.5%
Media	51.9%	13.4%	64.2%	9.8%	3.5%
Music	45.0%	13.1%	79.3%	7.6%	5.4%
Movies	38.0%	18.2%	75.4%	6.4%	11.8%