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The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

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Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#51

Post by wing-_-nuts »

amelius wrote: post #31
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #15

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. 1. They're massively unpopular and likely to cause electoral losses in '26 and '28 which will immediately undo them 2. Consumers know the tariffs will likely cause a recession, and will likely be undone in 4y. Pretty much every major spending purchase that can be delayed, will. 3. Companies know 4y is not enough time to invest in new supply chains or new manufa…

Sounds like a win for the climate, as a nice side effect.

Yes well, covid was a nice win for the climate. It was also a massive and devastating recession which we basically money printed our way out of. It would be nice if we could address climate issues with direct legislation instead of suffering on the population level (I will be fine)

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#52

Post by ty6853 »

andsoitis wrote: post #25
Workaccount2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. He most likely intends to pull out the financial pillar of income tax, and replace it with tariffs. He is likely waiting for the price crunch to blow up so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax.

Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.

On first glance that's the case, in practice they clamp down hardest on middle and professional classes. The rich borrow against gains or pay long term capital gains, or just "re-invest" (no profit) into durable assets for their business that hold value longer than they'll be alive.

The scam of income tax is that it's progressive on paper but not in practice.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#53

Post by alabastervlog »

sokoloff wrote: post #35
JKCalhoun wrote: post #5

Yeah, my electronics hobbies are probably severely curtailed. I am assuming that the cancelling the de minimus exception is the real killer. I assume I can no longer afford PCBWay, AliExpress. Recent purchases I am not likely to be able to afford: NVIDIA TESLA M40 cards from China I found on eBay and a "mining rig" mother board from AliExpress. (Was putting together a, formerly, inexpensive local-Llama rig.) To be su…

Shipping is not tariffed, so I expect that hobby PCBs will still be affordable. ($2 PCBs becoming $5 is hardly a deal-breaker.) Aliexpress I expect will adapt to end (or at least sharply curtail) free shipping promotions and start charging for shipping (which will not be tariffed), which better aligns what you’re actually paying for anyway. So, getting 100 transistors for $1.02 and free shipping with $10 total might…

Check out the planned minimum per-item fees for low-value (sub-$800) shipments planned when de minimus is rescinded for China.

They're.... high.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#54

Post by fabbari »

sokoloff wrote: post #35
JKCalhoun wrote: post #5

Yeah, my electronics hobbies are probably severely curtailed. I am assuming that the cancelling the de minimus exception is the real killer. I assume I can no longer afford PCBWay, AliExpress. Recent purchases I am not likely to be able to afford: NVIDIA TESLA M40 cards from China I found on eBay and a "mining rig" mother board from AliExpress. (Was putting together a, formerly, inexpensive local-Llama rig.) To be su…

Shipping is not tariffed, so I expect that hobby PCBs will still be affordable. ($2 PCBs becoming $5 is hardly a deal-breaker.) Aliexpress I expect will adapt to end (or at least sharply curtail) free shipping promotions and start charging for shipping (which will not be tariffed), which better aligns what you’re actually paying for anyway. So, getting 100 transistors for $1.02 and free shipping with $10 total might…

Just to get the numbers right: [0] there is a $25 minimum, that becomes $50 June 1st, on all packages below or at $800.

So those $0.25 transistors - after June 1st - come at $50.25 plus shipping.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#55

Post by mindslight »

sokoloff wrote: post #35
JKCalhoun wrote: post #5

Yeah, my electronics hobbies are probably severely curtailed. I am assuming that the cancelling the de minimus exception is the real killer. I assume I can no longer afford PCBWay, AliExpress. Recent purchases I am not likely to be able to afford: NVIDIA TESLA M40 cards from China I found on eBay and a "mining rig" mother board from AliExpress. (Was putting together a, formerly, inexpensive local-Llama rig.) To be su…

Shipping is not tariffed, so I expect that hobby PCBs will still be affordable. ($2 PCBs becoming $5 is hardly a deal-breaker.) Aliexpress I expect will adapt to end (or at least sharply curtail) free shipping promotions and start charging for shipping (which will not be tariffed), which better aligns what you’re actually paying for anyway. So, getting 100 transistors for $1.02 and free shipping with $10 total might…

If clearing customs per-package is too expensive or inconvenient, I expect Aliexpress will tweak their managed logistics process to import items as bulk shipments in the cargo container at wholesale value and add estimated customs charges as a checkout fee on top of item prices. I don't think big print "free shipping" will be affected as it gets people to buy more often and it pads the margins when people buy more at one time.

They already had to make a much bigger adjustment when they stopped being able to dump packages onto USPS, and from my experience it improved the delivery times dramatically. That's the thing about this ham-fisted "tough on China" authoritarian kayfabe - China isn't just some monolithic entity just sitting on their hands, they're now the distributed innovators operating in a nimble fashion.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#56

Post by Workaccount2 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #49
andsoitis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.

About 3/4 of households make under $150k/year. Having no income tax will be hugely popular with them. It would kill the argument that Trump is only interested tax breaks for the rich.

It would also make it politically untenable to get rid of tariffs and reinstate income tax.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#57

Post by ajmurmann »

square_usual wrote: post #38
cj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried using https://camelcamelcamel.com/ to find some examples of this, but no luck spotting obvious price increases. Curious what brand you were looking at?

yeah, I don't buy it either. I haven't seen any major price rises in the products I frequently check out. I'm assuming they're selling stock that's already in the US and don't have to pay tariffs on.

I assume this is true as well and am at the same time surprised by it. I'd have increased prices or held on to inventory as soon as I know the tariff rate and I know when it's coming. Even if I bought a laptop for $750 and can now sell it for $1000 the prospect of the market price for it going up to $1,500 or even $2,000 and turning a much larger profit is quite enticing. Maybe prices being fairly stable is a sign of low confidence in the tariffs?

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#58

Post by sokoloff »

fabbari wrote: post #54
sokoloff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping is not tariffed, so I expect that hobby PCBs will still be affordable. ($2 PCBs becoming $5 is hardly a deal-breaker.) Aliexpress I expect will adapt to end (or at least sharply curtail) free shipping promotions and start charging for shipping (which will not be tariffed), which better aligns what you’re actually paying for anyway. So, getting 100 transistors for $1.02 and free shipping with $10 total might…

Just to get the numbers right: [0] there is a $25 minimum, that becomes $50 June 1st, on all packages below or at $800. So those $0.25 transistors - after June 1st - come at $50.25 plus shipping. [0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

> Just to get the numbers right:

Yes, we should always strive to do that.

I haven’t gotten something from Aliexpress “sent through the international postal network” in a very long time (15 months or more and I think probably several years). Most everything I get comes from an Aliexpress-run line haul (which brokers the export and import customs clearance) and then is delivered by a local carrier (usually UniUni or another one they started calling themselves recently).

Sometimes they use Cainaio which uses USPS for last mile delivery, but based on the timings of tracking events, I think are still line-hauled and cleared by Cainaio as the broker rather than via the “international postal network”.

Both of those case would fall under the first of the sub-bullets ("will be subject to all applicable duties") rather than the second.

I agree the $50 would kill the current cheap [postal] shipping of PCBs, but I’m pretty sure JLCPCB, PCBWay, etc will all switch to line hauls as well (which might even end up being cheaper than DHL that I usually pick now).

It’s annoying, but I don’t think it marks the end of cheap hobby electronics parts; they just got a little less cheap.

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#59

Post by ajmurmann »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #12
ajmurmann wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This touches on something I'm curious to see play out: How much shopping tourism will we see? If a laptop costs twice as much due to tariffs (as indicated by the forecast in the article) how many US consumers will wait with buying a new laptop or phone till they happen to be in another country? I'm also curious if we'll see a huge spike in smuggling which might give more justification for more spending on border secu…

Obviously yes this will happen. Trade restrictions always results in more smuggling and black market activity.

Of course it will happen. I'm curious to what degree. Will 50% of US iPhone sales move abroad? Will smuggling of regular goods become a bigger deal than fentanyl smuggling?

Re: The many ways tarrifs will hit electronics

#60

Post by yurishimo »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #56
SoftTalker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 3/4 of households make under $150k/year. Having no income tax will be hugely popular with them. It would kill the argument that Trump is only interested tax breaks for the rich.

It would also make it politically untenable to get rid of tariffs and reinstate income tax.

Yea, this is the thing. Can you imagine transitioning over to a 0 income tax situation and then adding all of that infrastructure back? You know DOGE is going to nuke the servers that do it and rm -rf the repositories so if it's ever returned to law, everything will need to be done from scratch (likely making it untenable).

If you're an IT professional in the US Government, I would argue you have an obligation as a concerned citizen to make some local backups of the code powering the systems you work on every day and keep them somewhere safe...

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