What does a salad spinner have in common with a breast pump or guitar tuner?
What does a salad spinner have in common with a breast pump or guitar tuner?
US-China trade war
Podcasts

Behind the Tariffs: What a salad spinner reveals about tariff exemptions and China’s supply chains

  • How a kitchen tool can teach you about tax exemptions, innovation, patents and explain how China’s supply chains are unique in the world.

Jarrod WattFinbarr BerminghamNaomi Ng
Jarrod Watt Finbarr Bermingham and Naomi Ng

Updated: 4:22pm, 28 Jun, 2019

Why you can trust SCMP
What does a salad spinner have in common with a breast pump or guitar tuner?
What does a salad spinner have in common with a breast pump or guitar tuner?

What does it take to get an exclusion from US tariffs? More to the point, what do a breast pump, a soldering iron, a guitar tuner and a salad spinner have in common?

Each of these items has been granted an exclusion from tariffs by the Office of the US Trade Representative, and Naomi Ng heads off on a hunt for the Hong Kong engineer who owns the patent for the salad spinner.

Her search brings her to the office of Gigi Wong, and an education in what the salad spinner can tell us about intellectual property and innovation, how there’s one Cantonese word that explains the Chinese supply chain, and how tariffs will affect consumers in the United States.

Featuring:

READ FULL ARTICLE

Gigi Wong, chief operations officer, King’s Flair, Hong Kong

William Marshall, international trade and supply chain lawyer, Tiang & Partners, Hong Kong

Listen and subscribe now on iTunes, Spotify or on Stitcher

Jarrod Watt

Jarrod Watt

Jarrod Watt joined the Post in 2015 after more than a decade working as a multi-platform reporter and editor with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, creating video, radio and text stories. He currently produces podcasts and video, as well as developing new digital storytelling methods, including augmented reality and 360 interactive photography.

Finbarr Bermingham

Finbarr Bermingham

Finbarr Bermingham reports on Europe-China relations for the Post. He joined the newspaper in 2018, initially on the Political Economy desk reporting primarily on global trade, economics and geopolitics. After a decade on the trade beat in London and Hong Kong, he took up the role of Europe Correspondent, moving to Brussels to report from the heart of the EU. Having helmed the US-China Trade War Update, a weekly podcast, since 2019, he is the current host of the China Geopolitics Podcast.

Naomi Ng

Naomi Ng

Naomi worked as a reporter at the South China Morning Post from 2015 to 2019. She has previously written for CNN International in Hong Kong, and Mizzima news in Myanmar.