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

81–90 of 390 posts

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

#81

Post by EpicEng »

debt wrote: post #62
EpicEng wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're being downvoted; China absolutely does all of those things. They are not playing fair in the global market and never have. One can debate whether or not the tariff is the right approach, but let's not pretend that China is a victim.

Not every single Chinese tech firm does these things. It's possible to develop a more nuanced view of China other than "China bad tariff good". Why not investigate which firms committed which crimes and punish those specific firms? It's a smarter approach that helps our justice system and China's. But "smarter" isn't part of this administrations playbook.

Sure, but I don't think that's a practical solution. Also, tariffs like this aren't intended to harm individual businesses; the intent is to pressure the Chinese government, a government which directly supports and plays a role in IP theft and market manipulation. Why would the US spend an insane amount of resources to lessen the effect when the effect is exactly what they're after?

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

#82

Post by zach43 »

anon23423532 wrote: post #48

It's punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP, illegally subsidizing businesses to steal market share, and general national security by not outsourcing knowledge and infrastructure critical to national security to save a few bucks. It's easy to let someone push you back inch by inch instead of fighting back, but eventually you're on the edge of a cliff and have nowhere else to go. I'd take short…

> punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP

I feel like its more the other way round...the American IP system is overly expensive and outdated, and should be reformed instead. The repercussions of this are felt most heavily on domestic industries too.

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

#83

Post by rsynnott »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #68
rsynnott wrote: post #27

> It includes a broad range of components used in electronics manufacturing, specifically naming touchscreens, batteries, and electric motors. General components like transistors are also named on the list as well as more specific components used in televisions, cameras, and radio receivers. [..] Notably, the list does not include cellphones or completed televisions. So, this will, er, serve to discourage companies f…

Made in USA electronics goods are now more expensive via tariffs because the equipment and the components are now more expensive. Brilliant.

Well, more likely the companies making them will just move production elsewhere or go out of business. Components are big part of the cost of your average consumer device, and margins mostly aren't high.

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

#84

Post by elago »

anon23423532 wrote: post #77
tehbeard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP never said China was a victim, just that a tariff screws over US companies, not China.

If manufacturing moves elsewhere and a few million already disgruntled Chinese are out of jobs, Chinese government has big problems. Their impotent threat towards the US ag industry is also laughable when we produce 40-50% of the worlds soybeans and corn. Increasing food prices for the millions of unemployed workers is surely a winning strategy Cheap labor is plentiful, there's only one US consumer market. China has…

I'm curious how are you coming up with these economic projections? Are you running simulations? Reading reports? Are you an economist?

What if China just sells to other customers? What is China subsidizes it's manufacturers, so they get paid and keep their production capacity whether or not they're actually producing? Exactly like soybean and corn farmers in the US are btw.

The whole thing seems incredibly complex, and most of the economic opinions I read about don't say "markets are better when the goverment skims 25% off of all transactions".

So I'm curious how you immediately come to the conclusion "USA Wins, China has no leverage, game over".

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

#85

Post by xbmcuser »

anon23423532 wrote: post #77
tehbeard wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP never said China was a victim, just that a tariff screws over US companies, not China.

If manufacturing moves elsewhere and a few million already disgruntled Chinese are out of jobs, Chinese government has big problems. Their impotent threat towards the US ag industry is also laughable when we produce 40-50% of the worlds soybeans and corn. Increasing food prices for the millions of unemployed workers is surely a winning strategy Cheap labor is plentiful, there's only one US consumer market. China has…

Isn't this playing into China's hands they want to move up value chain from providing components to whole devices. Now chinese made devices will be at least 25% cheaper on components alone they already have the advantage of cheap labour. In the last few years assembly plants were supposedly coming back to the US now that would less likely.

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

#86

Post by lozenge »

Washuu wrote: post #56
rgbrenner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use the "Made in the USA" label like that anyway. It must be all or virtually all made in the USA. At best you could label it "Made in USA from Imported Parts" or "Assembled in USA." https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...

My intention was that the casing and PCBs would be made in the USA. The only China sourced parts would be the PCB components.(Not finalized/assembled PCBs.) As far as I know that would qualify for "Made in the USA".

By that reasoning a frozen meal could say "made in the USA" meaning the cardboard box was made in the USA.

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

#87

Post by bmelton »

cabaalis wrote: post #50
bmelton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So let me ask you, do you think the people in charge do not know this? Do you buy into the media push that Trump is a petulant, reactive child who does not listen to advisers? Do you think our government is truly led by the whims of a single individual? Tariffs are a political tool. There is some objective here that is not being publicly outlined because it would defeat the purpose of the strategy. Example: Other cou…

I mean, I can answer those questions, but the OP comment was a critique of the policy, not the policy makers.

Yes, I understand that perhaps OP's comment might have been influenced by the policy maker, but nothing in their post makes any mention of anything beyond a simple policy critique, so this line of argumentation is, at best, putting words in their mouth.

If a policy is, to one's opinion, good or bad, then it should not matter whether or not the policy was proposed by someone we like or someone we hate, and to that end, it shouldn't matter one whit how popularly supported it is by our legislators, even where that popularity is enjoyed across partisan lines.

Arguing against a policy critique with a critique (or commendation) of the policy-makers is totally non-sequitur.

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

#88

Post by jandrese »

debt wrote: post #76
jandrese wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that you could find firms that have not stolen IP to make their product, trying to nail down the sanctions to individual businesses would never work. The number of entities you would need to track and audit is enormous and it's way too easy for someone to launder the information around to supposedly "good" businesses. You're talking about the entire supply chain, so you would end up punishing firms that…

"so you would end up punishing firms that are otherwise innocent" That's exactly what the current tariffs do. So I guess if it's too much work to vet individual firms, we just lazily start a trade war? Again, for this administration, sounds about right.

Yes. You can either punish innocent firms, or punish innocent firms plus lots of extra paperwork.

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

#89

Post by anon23423532 »

elago wrote: post #84
anon23423532 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If manufacturing moves elsewhere and a few million already disgruntled Chinese are out of jobs, Chinese government has big problems. Their impotent threat towards the US ag industry is also laughable when we produce 40-50% of the worlds soybeans and corn. Increasing food prices for the millions of unemployed workers is surely a winning strategy Cheap labor is plentiful, there's only one US consumer market. China has…

I'm curious how are you coming up with these economic projections? Are you running simulations? Reading reports? Are you an economist? What if China just sells to other customers? What is China subsidizes it's manufacturers, so they get paid and keep their production capacity whether or not they're actually producing? Exactly like soybean and corn farmers in the US are btw. The whole thing seems incredibly complex, a…

They can try selling to other customers, but US is still around 25% of global GDP and probably a larger percentage of the market for the components that have been tariffed. Chinese government would have to print a lot of money to make up for that, which causes it's own issues, especially when considering the amount of debt China has already racked up.

The point isn't for the government to skim 25%, it's to get China to trade fairly or if worse comes to worse bring manufacturing back to the US.

In the event of a trade war US has leverage because we have the market and a essential product, food. US consumers can live without another 42in tv, Chinese can't live without food and they are entirely dependent on importing that food.

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

#90

Post by natvert »

Jyaif wrote: post #34
natvert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure... price * 1.25 :) still... crazy.

You said "125% more ", which is incorrect. If you had said "125% of the price", then that would have been correct.

yes, i don't disagree. this is all beside the point though -- the tariffs will have the opposite of the desired effect though: pushing more assembly to China and making it harder for innovators in the US.
Post reply on HN