Inside Southeast Asia's booming trade in fakes that the US hates
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On the bustling, neon-lit streets of Bangkok, the thirty-something from
India hawks imitation Rolex watches with a practised ease.
'This is nearly as good as the real one,' he says, grinning, before melting into the crowd, a bag of replica Swiss timepieces slung over his shoulder.
His trade is illegal, yet it flourishes out in the open – a mere ripple in Southeast Asia's ocean of counterfeit goods. Now, that ocean is in the crosshairs of Washington, which is leveraging the region's persistent intellectual property violations in the tense final days of trade negotiations.
Trump's White House has imposed a July 9 deadline: if trade talks fail, then on Wednesday Southeast Asia's export-driven economies could face punishing tariffs of up to 49 per cent.
The primary target is Chinese goods diverted through neighbouring countries – a practice known as transshipment that helps Chinese products sidestep Washington's existing tariffs.
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