At this electronics market in China, buyers can find parts for just about everything

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NPR's Steve Inskeep visits a massive electronics market in Shenzhen, China, where buyers can source parts for just about anything.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

For a summit here in China, President Trump brought the CEOs of trillion-dollar companies. This week, we had a look at the economy from a slightly lower altitude at the SEG Electronics market in the city of Shenzhen. This market is in a giant building - floor after floor of booths where buyers can find parts for about everything. We went up the escalators with Aqua Jiang, who's one of the sellers.

I don't even understand what I'm looking at half the time. There's so many products here.

AQUA JIANG: It can be confusing. That's why you need to spend a lot of time, actually, to understand.

INSKEEP: You can buy a circuit board or computer memory. You can buy cameras or components for cameras, calculators, hair dryers, tiny electric motors, drones. And at the top of each escalator to each floor was another escalator.

Oh, my. We can look here at it just going up and up and up.

We interviewed several vendors who are conduits for the global economy. They receive goods manufactured in China. Buyers come here to source goods, as they put it. Several sellers said they don't really know where their products go, just that the buyers are of different races. During our visit on Monday, many also didn't know that the presidential summit was about to happen. They were focused on work. But we met one person who knew.

What'd you say your name was?

JERRY ZHONG: Jerry.

INSKEEP: Jerry?

ZHONG: Jerry. Tom and Jerry.

INSKEEP: Tom and Jerry.

Jerry Zhong says U.S. policy has affected his business.

What do you think about President Trump?

ZHONG: Honestly (laughter)?

INSKEEP: Sure.

ZHONG: Maybe the policy is not so nice, you know?

INSKEEP: Jerry stood behind a case filled with the innards for an elevator or a smart appliance. His booth was filled with so many cardboard boxes that he hardly had room for himself. He came here after quitting his job as an engineer for Foxconn, the giant manufacturer of iPhones.

ZHONG: I used to be working there. Then I quit my job to do my own business.

INSKEEP: Are you glad you did that?

ZHONG: Yeah. Yeah, because it's happy to talk with others. I can come here. It's more free, you know? Freedom.

INSKEEP: Yeah.

ZHONG: (Laughter).

INSKEEP: How do you feel about the economy right now?

ZHONG: I think it not good (laughter). I think it not good.

INSKEEP: Why is that?

ZHONG: Big pressure for young people, you know? You know, because the - of the war between U.S. and China, I think.

INSKEEP: He says the U.S. pressured some global companies to move factory jobs out of Shenzhen to South or Southeast Asia.

ZHONG: The policy - U.S. pushed them - move the production from China to Vietnam, India or something.

INSKEEP: And that's hurting young people?

ZHONG: Yeah. It's not easy to get a good job than before.

INSKEEP: In thinking about the presidential summit, Jerry Zhong expressed a hope for fewer limits on U.S. technology.

ZHONG: We cannot buy things from - like, something from America before, you know, especially for some components, when the tax increased so much.

INSKEEP: So there's tariffs and also the U.S. export controls that forbid...

ZHONG: Yeah. Yeah.

INSKEEP: ...Some things.

ZHONG: Because with some components, we cannot buy it anymore, you know?

INSKEEP: Jerry Zhong described his day. He often works 12 hours. He does know where his products go because he stays up late to field calls from South America. He's a tiny part of the global economy, and he'd like for it to work just a little more efficiently so he can pay his mortgage.

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