American businesses are cancelling orders from China, postponing expansion plans and hunkering down to see what trade policy surprises President Donald Trump plans to spring on them next.

Voters returned Donald Trump to the White House in November believing he would be better for the economy than his opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

President Donald Trump said China deserved the steep tariffs he imposed on their exports and predicted Beijing could find a way to reduce their impact on American consumers.

A Chinese government video exhorts other countries not to buckle to U.S. trade pressure and pledges to "fight on."

Since China first joined the World Trade Organisation a quarter century ago, it has developed a particularly Darwinian version of capitalism, in which companies must tolerate unending rounds of brutal price competition,