Chinese online retailers have cut spending on Facebook and Instagram advertising to deal with President Donald Trump’s tough trade policies with the country.

Yuan Finance chief Susan Li said Wednesday that “Asia-based e-commerce exporters” have reduced spending with social media companies. Lee said on a first-quarter earnings call that the companies could do so when preparing for the De Minimis trade loophole that ends this Friday.

"Some of that spending has redirected it to other markets, but these advertisers' overall spending is below the level before April," Lee said.

Trump signed an executive order in early April to end the minimum restricted trade waiver on Chinese imports, benefiting online retailers such as Temu and Shein. Analysts said they believe Temu and Shein constitute the majority of Meta's 2024 China-related $18.35 billion sales.

The company said Meta's advertising sales in the Asia-Pacific region were $8.22 billion in the first quarter. That's the $8.42 billion forecast by Wall Street.

Li said Yuan Element’s second-quarter revenue will be between $42.5 billion and $45.5 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations of $44.03 billion.

"It's very early now, it's hard to know how it will work throughout the quarter, and of course it's hard to know the rest of the year," Lee said.

What did this respond Google On its revenue call last week, it warned it expects to suffer headwinds due to its advertising business, especially from the Asia-Pacific region. Similarly, Break It said Tuesday it “experienced a headwind that began the quarter.”

Trump's 145% tariff on China also appears to have affected Meta's reality lab unit, which creates virtual reality and augmented reality devices.

Reality Labs lost $4.2 billion, while also generating $412 million in sales in the first quarter.

Meta said its capital expenditure in 2025 will be between $64 billion and $72 billion, up from its previous outlook for $60 billion to $65 billion.

"This updated Outlook reflects more data center investments to support our AI efforts and the expected increase in infrastructure hardware," the company said in its earnings release.

Regarding the higher costs of infrastructure hardware, Li told analysts that this is the result of “suppliers from all over the world.” She said the cost of infrastructure hardware and “higher expectations of real-life laboratory sales costs” is higher, “partially offsetting” the total 2025 expenses of the estimated range of the dollar.

"That's just a lot of uncertainty given the ongoing trade discussion, given the ongoing trade discussion," Lee said.

watch:Meta shows tangible examples of AI investment.