“I don’t see Mexico or Vietnam or India stopping to sell products for political reasons, but we live under that constant threat with China,” he said, pointing out how China hoarded personal protection gear for hospitals, things like masks and hospital gowns that are almost all made in China.

Mexico’s business culture is more risk averse and less open to newcomers, according to a recent podcast with international lawyer Dan Harris and supply chain expert Andrew Hupert. They emphasized that companies can succeed in Mexico, but finding suppliers and negotiating agreements will be more challenging than in China. The number of potential suppliers will be smaller, in addition to them being harder to find.

“I’ve talked to 50 people in the last six months,” said Arlo Kipfer, a Seattle attorney who has also consulted with scam victims on how to move forward.

“The most heartbreaking thing is they bleed the victims dry—the odds of recovery are still low.”

Nearly a decade ago Dan Harris, an attorney who works with American companies doing business in China, wrote, “The key to weathering China’s slowdown will be … to go back to basics: think afresh about what a company contributes to China’s economy and how that is likely to shape policy makers’ opinions; focus on scrupulous regulatory compliance; and renew focus on due diligence at a company-to-company level. Above all, no Western company doing business in China should blithely assume that a slowdown won’t affect it.” That’s wise advice today.

Chinese legal expert Dan Harris emphasized supply chain risks based on questions his firm’s attorneys are hearing about production in Chines factories.

New Balance disagreed with the ruling for a host of reasons, one of which was that the company barely used the Xin Bai Lun name except on some advertisements and websites, never on shoes. It said the name hardly constituted a trademark. The company has hired a new counsel and appealed the decision. But so far New Balance has lost the fight it picked—and as it waits for a higher court’s ruling, it’s worth asking whether it’s time for them to bow out.

China’s trademark laws, though relatively advanced, break with Western ones in several key ways. The most important one: China is a first-to-file country. “This means that whomever files a trademark first gets it,” says Dan Harris, a partner at Harris Sliwoski in Seattle focusing on China, regardless of whether another company is already making a product with the same name in, say, America.