Recently, after some of Trump's actions, the tariff cloud quickly enveloped the global financial market, and the risk assets suffered a collective sell-off, and the global capital market seemed to be caught in a storm of "bloody rain", and the A-share market was not spared.

However, in the current environment of tariff frictions, what are the areas that are less affected by tariffs and even usher in development opportunities due to countermeasures? Jingtai has compiled a list of good industries for you.

Semiconductors

The core goal of the U.S. tariffs is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., especially high-end technology industries. By raising the cost of imported goods, they hope to attract capital back and rebuild their own manufacturing sector. However, the United States does not really care much about low-end manufacturing such as clothing, textiles and mobile phone assembly.

With the increase in tariffs, the import cost of mature process chips in the United States has risen sharply, and the competitiveness in the Chinese market has also decreased. In other words, mature chips abroad are now facing greater challenges, while mature chips in China have ushered in good opportunities for development, especially in the field of analog chips.

This incident has also made China more aware of the importance of high-end technology industries, especially in the field represented by semiconductors. The pace of domestic substitution is likely to accelerate as a result. For example, in order to reduce their dependence on American equipment, domestic companies are more inclined to choose domestic equipment produced by North Huachuang, China Micro Corporation, and Tuojing Technology. These companies have great potential for development in "bottleneck" links such as semiconductor equipment and EDA software.

It is worth noting that China's semiconductor equipment exports to the United States account for a small proportion and are basically not affected by tariffs. So, the pressure on this piece is relatively small.

In general, in the context of Sino-US trade frictions, some key areas will usher in new development opportunities. For example:

Analog chips: Companies like Shengbang are likely to get more attention.

Semiconductor equipment: Companies like NAURA will have more opportunities to show their strength.

EDA software: Companies such as Empyrean may also become the darlings of the capital market.

Advances in these areas will not only help improve the overall level of the domestic semiconductor industry, but also provide new opportunities for investors.

Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery

Effective April 10, 2025, the State Department approved an additional 34% tariff on imports originating in the United States. Since March 10, China has imposed tariffs of 10%-15% on agricultural products from the United States, such as corn and soybeans.

At present, China's soybean imports are still highly dependent on overseas markets, but in recent years the sources of imports have become more diversified, and the proportion of the United States has declined. Therefore, although the tariff will support the prices of soybeans and soybean meal, the impact is not expected to be as large as in 2018. In addition, the fluctuation of soybean prices may drive up the prices of corn, wheat and other grains, which is good news for the domestic seed industry and grain planting-related sectors.

Although the trade war has exacerbated the barriers to seed imports, it has also prompted China to pay more attention to "independent and controllable seeds", and accelerated the research and development and policy promotion of genetically modified technology. However, at present, the commercialization of GM is still in the expected stage, and it is difficult to see the actual performance in the short term, and the performance of related stocks is more driven by the theme.

Recently, the pig breeding sector has risen sharply against the trend. The logic of the market is that the tariffs raise demand concerns about soybeans, corn and other feed ingredients. Corn and soybean meal are the main raw materials for pig fattening, accounting for about 80% of the total raw materials, and the cost of feed accounts for 55% of the breeding costs. Therefore, the market generally expects that the rise in feed prices will weaken the anti-risk ability of pig enterprises and accelerate the process of de-industrialization of the industry.

However, this reaction is more based on anticipatory hype. At present, pig breeding is still in the profit cycle, especially in the self-breeding mode, which is actually the biggest obstacle to active de-breeding. Therefore, whether the market can truly complete the active de-regulation still needs to be further observed.

Duty-free business

On April 8, the State Administration of Taxation issued an announcement clarifying the specific provisions of the "buy and refund" tax refund for departure, and plans to promote this policy nationwide. The next day, China Duty Free, a leading company in the duty-free industry, rose to the limit of A-shares, and the share price of Hong Kong stocks soared by 24%. Despite the increase in import costs due to the imposition of tariffs, the duty-free industry is seen as the biggest beneficiary and has attracted much attention in the capital market.

In the short term, the reason why capital pays so much attention to the duty-free industry is mainly because it has the dual advantages of "zero tariff + high quality". This means that the duty-free industry can become an important starting point for policies to support the recovery of consumption. For example, Hainan offshore duty-free sales increased by 37% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, and the price advantage of the duty-free channel is expected to further promote the return of consumption.

The target group of the "buy now, return now" policy is mainly foreigners who come to China for tourism. According to the data of the Immigration Administration, a total of 6.212 million Chinese and foreign people entered and exited the country during the three days of the Qingming Festival holiday, an increase of 19.7% over the same period last year. Among them, the number of foreigners entering and leaving the country was 697,000, an increase of 39.5% year-on-year. With the gradual release of the potential of inbound tourism consumption in the future, China's duty-free industry is expected to gain more incremental opportunities.

However, the recent surge in tax-exempt stocks is more due to the pursuit of short-term funds. Although the prospect of the duty-free industry is promising, it remains to be seen whether the logic of the track has changed substantially, and what the actual growth situation is. After all, there is sometimes a gap between market sentiment and actual performance.