Casualty of trade war: Chinese investments in US grind to a halt, blocking new jobs

COLUMBIA, S.C. - When a relatively unknown Chinese company called Jushi built a state-of-the-art fiberglass factory in the pine woods of South Carolina not long ago, it made a big splash.

In a chronically depressed area where the most conspicuous features include small churches and bail-bond offices, some 400 people flocked to the new plant for jobs. Jushi, which means giant rock in Chinese, began production in May.

It looked like a happy reversal of an all-too-familiar pattern: Instead of U.S. factories fleeing to China and leaving thousands of American workers floundering, here was a Chinese company setting up in the United States and offering good old-fashioned factory jobs to Americans.

Unhappily, like many other potential bright spots in the U.S. economy, new plants like Jushi's have become a casualty of the yearlong trade conflict between the U.S. and China.

And although President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a