Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 390 posts

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#31

Post by kayfox »

nodesocket wrote: post #26
kayfox wrote: post #21

So, to encourage manufacturers in the US to build more stuff in the US, they will increase tariffs on components so that it will cost even more to build something in the US than to build it in China. Good plan, hello Canada!

You realize that Democrats are supporting these tarrifs on China as well. China has already won the trade war by dumping steel and aluminum and stealing intellectual property for decades. This isn't even controversal.

But how does this fix the issue and what does the Democrats supporting it have to do with that?

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#32

Post by mcbits »

kayfox wrote: post #16
mcbits wrote: post #10

Does this apply to small quantities imported for personal use?

Yes.

Where can I verify this? As I understand it, we already have a bunch of tariffs in the 5% range that only apply to commercial/industrial imports.

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#33

Post by Washuu »

kayfox wrote: post #21

So, to encourage manufacturers in the US to build more stuff in the US, they will increase tariffs on components so that it will cost even more to build something in the US than to build it in China. Good plan, hello Canada!

I am in the middle of starting a business around a product that will get slammed by this. I was going to import the components and have the boards built here.("Made in the USA" labels are huge for my target market.)

Assuming I am parsing all of this correctly it will end up being better for me to have the PCBs assembled into the products in China and not create jobs in the USA.

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#35

Post by stevenwoo »

rsynnott wrote: post #22
craftyguy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish countries would sanction Trump's companies.

Difficult to do legally; just because the US may be breaking WTO rules isn't license for everyone else to do it.

The USA already did sanctions on individuals with the Magnitsky targeted sanctions of individual Russians that were deemed responsible for the accountant's death in prison.

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#36

Post by hangonhn »

vtange wrote: post #13

A lot of argument against tariffs seems to assume that prices in the US will rise and stay increased permanently assuming production stays in China. Wouldn't the downsides of tariffs actually only remain until production moves to say, Vietnam, etc.?

No. It's not that easy to move. Factories don't work in isolation. One of the major advantages of China is that all the suppliers are located very close to each other so you can get very fast turn arounds. Some people have the mistaken notion that it's only because of cheaper labor, which is only partly true. But in the area where a lot of the manufacturing is happening, Shenzhen, labor cost isn't that cheap because the cost of living has skyrocketed.

This is an old but really insightful article on why manufacturing happens in China: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...

It's similar to why tech startups largely start in or move to Silicon Valley. It's the ecosystem of VC, pool of talent (Stanford, Berkeley, the other UCs, and tech companies), and existing large tech companies.

This all can change but not overnight.

Wendover Productions did a nice video on manufacturing in Shenzhen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Jfrzkmzyc (Highly relevant to the big picture and issues around the tariffs)

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#37

Post by nodesocket »

bmelton wrote: post #30
nodesocket wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that Democrats are supporting these tarrifs on China as well. China has already won the trade war by dumping steel and aluminum and stealing intellectual property for decades. This isn't even controversal.

Does that materially change whether or not it does or doesn't make it more expensive to build products in America that rely on Chinese components?

I can't speak specifically to these new items, but just to give an example, many auto experts came out and said the steel and aluminum tarrifs would raise car prices, but so small it's a rounding error. Typically under $100 or $200 per car.

Point being, people jump to conclusions without seeing the impact on the total cost of goods. Meanwhile dismissing the point, putting more capital into the pockets of US based companies which improves the economy.

Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

#40

Post by sokoloff »

maccio92 wrote: post #17
luma wrote: post #3

As a basement hacker selling goods on Tindie this tariff schedule covers nearly every tool, consumable, and component parts I use in everything I do. My cost of business just went up by 25% today across the board. The full schedule: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investig... Example items of interest to people designing electronic goods in the US: ------------------------------------------------…

You can't buy these parts from US companies?

You can, but at a substantially higher multiple than 1.25x that the post-tariff rate represents.

The electronics supply chain in China is hard to comprehend how strong it is in terms of price and availability.

Post reply on HN