The UK is set to be flooded with cheap Chinese vapes due to Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, industry experts have warned.
Researchers say Chinese manufacturers are looking to capitalise on the world’s second most important market after being blocked from the U.S by new sky-high tariffs.
The U.S import tax on Chinese-made vapes is now around 60 per cent – far less than the threatened 170 per cent, but still leaving the Asian country’s $11.1 billion (€9.85 billion) vape export industry reeling.
Meanwhile, the UK is set to impose a ban on disposable vapes on June 1, leaving a gap in the market for cheap refillable vapes that Chinese manufacturers will look to fill.
Deborah Arnott, an honorary associate professor at University College London and the former chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “With reduced access to the U.S., there will be growing competition to sell to the UK market, as it’s the main alternative.”
Chinese shipments of vapes are already being blocked from the U.S., according to Dr Steve Shaowei Xu, a research scientist at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and an expert on the Chinese vape industry.
“Already there are reports [that] shipments have been blocked and U.S. orders cut in half,” he said, adding that the “very sophisticated” industry would find ways to get around the current “disaster”.
By-passing the “disposables” definition
Experts are concerned that the UK provides a well-timed ‘work-around’ as it prepares for its ban on single-use vapes. The new legislation opens up an opportunity for China to provide cheap models that are technically refillable but look like disposables and cost around the same. Their look-alike designs and cheaper prices could, experts say, make the UK ban ineffective as they will still be appealing to young people.
There are also concerns that some Chinese vape manufacturers will exploit weak UK import enforcement, meaning non-compliant and potentially dangerous vapes could reach consumers.
Academics have already warned the disposables ban is unlikely to stop youth smoking and may instead have “unintended consequences” such as driving people back to far more harmful smoking.
Cheap refills that look like disposables
Arnott said: “All the main manufacturers produce these products now and they look the same and are very similar prices to the disposables they are replacing.
“My concern is that because they don’t look any different and are still very cheap, people may carry on treating them like disposables and throwing them away rather than buying refills.”
Xu said the Chinese vaping industry was a “very sophisticated, fast-moving consumer goods industry” and would continue to find work arounds to comply, particularly in the face of “disaster” tariffs.
He added: “In the longer term they can try to move manufacturing overseas to circumvent the tariffs, but in the short term they have to find replacement markets to survive.”
Scott Butler, the executive director of Material Focus, a not-for-profit organisation that runs the Recycle Your Electricals campaign, said it needs to be easier for consumers to recycle vapes.
He said: “This ban takes the most environmentally wasteful and damaging types of vapes off the market, so that is a good thing.
“But millions and millions of vapes are going to continue to be sold, and unless there’s real action to make it easier for the public to recycle them, they’ll keep ending up in bins, on streets and in landfill.”
