In 2025, the Trump administration restarted the “equal tariffs” policy, imposing a maximum tariff rate of 245% on China and blocking “transit trade” in Southeast Asia (such as Vietnam’s steel tariff soaring to 46%).
According to calculations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), this policy will lead to a 12% increase in global trade costs, with Chinese overseas enterprises bearing the brunt and facing unprecedented pressure
● The average tax rate for exports from the three main industries of electronics, furniture, and machinery to the United States is about 81.5%;
● The “transit tax avoidance” path in Southeast Asia has been blocked, and production costs in Thailand, Malaysia and other places have surged by 15% -23%;
● The risk of USD settlement has intensified, and fluctuations in the RMB exchange rate have led to a 8% -15% decrease in foreign trade profits for certain industries.
In this’ tariff shock ‘, Chinese overseas enterprises not only face multiple challenges such as supply chain disruptions, market shrinkage, and soaring compliance costs, but also must find a breakthrough in the fierce competition of the global trade’ zero sum game ‘. This is the core issue that every overseas enterprise urgently needs to solve.
However, crises often come with opportunities – unlike the “zero sum game” thinking of Western countries, the “complete victory” strategy (winning the enemy and becoming stronger) in the Eastern wisdom “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu provides a new path for Chinese overseas enterprises to break through difficulties.
Today, Acloudier, an expert in digital transformation for Chinese overseas enterprises, has extracted 7 strategic strategies based on the core strategic ideas of 《The Art of War by Sun Tzu》 to help companies find a way out and break through the global economic storm.
Acloudier is a global expert in overseas operations, based on the classic wisdom of “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. They have carefully constructed 7 offensive and defensive strategies for Chinese overseas enterprises, helping them maintain stability and growth in the storm of the global economy.
Tactical Transformation
① Flexible adaptability: The supply chain layout should not stick to a fixed pattern, but should be flexibly adjusted according to different market environments and tariff policies, such as responding to tariff policies in different regions by dispersing production nodes.
② Avoiding the real and attacking the virtual: Based on different markets and policies, choose regions with lighter tariff burdens for production, flexibly adjust production locations, avoid concentrating resources and energy in high tax areas, and reduce risks.
Tactical Transformation
① Proactively explore ASEAN, BRICS, and Latin American markets, rapidly reduce dependence on the US market, and seize the opportunity in emerging markets.
② Surprise: Through precise market positioning and localized product strategies, break through market limitations and avoid tariff barriers before competitors notice.
Tactical Transformation
① Riding on the momentum: taking advantage of the huge demand in the domestic market and the trend of consumption upgrading, accelerating the expansion of domestic sales channels, riding on the east wind of domestic consumption recovery, and reducing dependence on external markets.
② Unstoppable: By integrating domestic and foreign trade platforms through digitalization, strengthening the connection with consumers, improving market response speed, and forming a strong market synergy.
Tactical Transformation
① Know yourself and know your enemy: Make full use of tools such as SAP Global Trade Services to real-time understand the tariff policies and rules of different countries, accurately simulate multiple solutions, and find the path with the lowest cost.
② Winning a hundred battles: By precise tariff calculation and compliance management, avoiding excessive burden and tax risks, maintaining competitiveness, and breaking the tariff dilemma.
Tactical Transformation
① Youdao: Emphasize technological innovation, focus on high value-added fields such as new energy vehicles and intelligent products, and enhance market competitiveness through technological breakthroughs and product differentiation.
② Breaking through the low gross profit product field quickly with technological and product advantages, occupying a dominant position in the high value-added market, and forming an unstoppable competitive situation.
Tactical Transformation
① Those who have attained enlightenment are more helpful: By using RMB internationalization tools and financial hedging strategies, utilizing China’s policy cooperation with other countries, reducing the impact of US dollar fluctuations on enterprises, and obtaining more financial support.
② Unscrupulous individuals are of little help: Relying on US dollar settlements without taking hedging measures will result in unnecessary risk losses. Therefore, it is important to manage exchange rates in advance to reduce exchange rate risks.
Tactical Transformation
① Know the enemy and know the friend: Make full use of the free trade agreements and national strategic policies signed between China and other countries, reduce tariff costs, and counter the trade barriers of the United States.
② Winning a hundred battles: Through compliance management and policy coordination, aligning with national policies, reducing policy risks and compliance challenges faced by enterprises, and improving the stability of global operations.
Through these strategic transformations, it can be seen that the classic wisdom of “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu is being applied in the current global trade environment: flexible adaptation, preemptive strike, self-awareness, seizing the opportunity, innovative breakthroughs, policy coordination, helping Chinese overseas enterprises to resolve risks and improve competitiveness in the face of the Trump administration’s tariffs. This is not only a strategic guidance for enterprises, but also a practical application of Chinese wisdom to break through the global trade.
Since we have obtained numerous coping strategies with the help of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, how should we implement these strategies based on the above strategies?
As stated in Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War: Momentum”: “Those who are good at war seek momentum, not blame others.” In this tariff war, we need to use SAP public cloud ERP to build a digitally driven “momentum” to help companies occupy advantageous positions in the complex global market.
● Creation potentiality: Build a digital trade network and reshape global operational rules.
● Follow potentiality: Let the flexible supply chain adjust its form at any time in the face of tariff fluctuations, ensuring that enterprises can still steadily move forward in the storm.
● Seize potentiality: With the upgrading of China’s intelligent manufacturing, grasp the technological dividends, and transform into high value-added productivity.
As AcloudEAR Network, which has been committed to helping Chinese enterprises with digital transformation, our proposed implementation plan is to rely on the world’s leading SAP cloud solution to create a clear, effective, and resilient global operations management platform.
We focus on SAP public cloud ERP, with process standardization, data standardization, and organizational collaboration as the core, to lay a replicable foundation for enterprise multi location operations, multi country teams, and multi currency financial management.
We help businesses build three pillars: financial and compliance systems, overseas employee and organizational management, and overseas marketing and delivery. This solution is the beginning of enterprise globalization, which can quickly deploy SAP public cloud ERP and gradually integrate SAP GTS and PaPM when dealing with complex tariffs and performance simulations, comprehensively enhancing the digital response capabilities of enterprises.
Step 1: GROW with SAP
The global operation of overseas enterprises requires systematic digital support. GROW with SAP helps businesses easily tackle complex global processes, compliance, finance, and tax issues during their digital transformation.
Step 2: Implementation on the ground
In global operations, relying on digital management systems to enhance overall efficiency, breaking down tariff barriers through cross regional business integration, and providing enterprises with the ability to flexibly respond to global uncertainty and risks.
Step 3: Gradually integrate SAP GTS and SAP PaPM
SAP GTS： Simplify customs compliance management, avoid high fines and transportation delays, automatically optimize trade processes, and help enterprises adapt to constantly changing tariff policies.
SAP PaPM： Provide intelligent tax management and performance analysis to help enterprises accurately simulate and predict the impact of tariff changes on product and service costs and profits, simplify tariff calculations, enhance tax transparency, and ensure cross-border tax compliance.
Write it at the end
As Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Fund, the world’s largest hedge fund, said, “We are experiencing a systemic collapse of the global monetary, political, and geopolitical order that we have only seen in a lifetime
At this historic moment, as a professional service provider that helps Chinese and even overseas enterprises provide digital transformation services, AcloudEAR will firmly stand with national policies and our corporate clients to jointly cope with the tariff storm.
By combining Chinese wisdom with global experience and utilizing leading SAP cloud solutions, we help enterprises break through the dilemma of “zero sum game”, enhance competitiveness, and achieve a “win-win” strategy.
In this challenging global trade environment, digital transformation will become the key to business success, and the wisdom of Sun Tzu’s Art of War guides businesses towards success.
We believe that under the guidance of Chinese wisdom, Chinese overseas enterprises will be ready to take off on the stage of global economic changes, bravely stand at the forefront, and steadily move forward!
Acloudier is a SAP Platinum Partner, GROW with SAP Certified Partner, and a member of the United VARs Global Top SAP Partner Alliance, specializing in SAP public cloud ERP solutions. Adhere to SAP cloud as the core, take “global wisdom, global delivery, global collaboration, empowering China” as our responsibility, and deeply explore the value of SAP cloud solutions. With years of profound knowledge accumulation and service capabilities, we have a large number of successful cases of SAP cloud products in industries such as automotive parts, medical equipment, high-tech, e-commerce, equipment manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, and engineering services. High quality implementation capability and online success rate make it stand out in fierce market competition, gradually forming a good ecosystem of high customer renewal rate and continuous recommendation of new customers.
This article "Counterattack Strategy under Global Tariff Challenge: 《The Art of War by Sun Tzu》 Helps Chinese Enterprises Win Trade Wars" by AcloudEAR. We focus on business applications such as cloud ERP.
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