Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#611

Post by alabastervlog » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:27 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #561

jijijijij wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your computer parts factory likely runs using a large amount of imported raw materials, imported machines, and imported tooling, and there are no tariff exemptions for those broad categories… so you’re screwed. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local 24/7 news feed for more than eight years, so there’s no point in acting surprised about it. You’ve had plenty of time to lodge…

> crypto scam on his supporters It absolutely blow my mind that that was just "Friday", and not the biggest scandal in Western political history. "It's just Trump being Trump, move on, move on, nothing to see here, no consequences for anyone..."

The speed with which we went from “out-of-context recording of a ‘yeaaaaaah!’ can end your presidential campaign” to “suggesting your supporters shoot your opponent if she wins doesn’t mean you can’t be president… twice” was incredibly quick.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#612

Post by timewizard » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:27 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #587

timewizard wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've failed to do is educate enough of our people to prosper as a deindustrialized nation What education did we give them to prosper as an industrialized nation? It seems to me that the population was able to discover that and benefit from it entirely on their own. Why do they need "education" to "prosper" in current conditions? Aren't we currently living in the most educated time already? That is we have more peo…

> What education did we give them to prosper as an industrialized nation? That's an odd question, given that Prussian schooling was invented to turn children into productive factory workers.

The model and the curriculum are two separate things and our schools never included industrial education. That and our higher education is far less "vocational" than the countries that more strictly adhered to the system.

There's nothing odd about the question. What's odd is that you assert that conditions 200 years ago are relevant to it.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#613

Post by soVeryTired » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:31 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #609

owenversteeg wrote: post #247

I’m not seeing anyone discuss this here, so I figured I’d raise an important point: this style of tariffs is crushing for US manufacturing. While a universal tariff with no exceptions incentivizes domestic manufacturing, a selective tariff with specific industry exceptions is absolute poison. You might think, as the authors of this exemption did, “well then we will exempt computer parts.” Then people will simply impo…

It's the opposite! A universal tariff is a tariff on all inputs that manufacturers need to be competitive. How will Ford or Tesla ever be competitive if all their inputs are 24% more expensive than Toyota's inputs? Autarky doesn't work. Juche doesn't work. Comparative advantage works, both theoretically and in practice if we study economic history.

Do you really believe in the comparative advantage argument though? Surely it’s only true if comparative advantage is fixed over time.

And surely in order to leverage comparative advantage, an economy would need to know how good they would be at producing every possible good.

There are good reasons to trade, but comparative advantage doesn’t feel like the correct theoretical underpinning to me.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#614

Post by DonHopkins » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:33 AM UTC

Renaud wrote: post #591

owenversteeg wrote: post #247

I’m not seeing anyone discuss this here, so I figured I’d raise an important point: this style of tariffs is crushing for US manufacturing. While a universal tariff with no exceptions incentivizes domestic manufacturing, a selective tariff with specific industry exceptions is absolute poison. You might think, as the authors of this exemption did, “well then we will exempt computer parts.” Then people will simply impo…

Universal import taxes on everything make no sense. If you want to protect strategic production, you apply selective tariffs to support that local production while ensuring it can ramp up and import what it needs until it becomes self-sufficient. Most countries, the US included, have used selective tariffs for this purpose. Applying a blanket tax on every type of import just increases inflation, as you can't possibly…

Why not two out of three?

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#615

Post by DonHopkins » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:36 AM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #338

owenversteeg wrote: post #247

I’m not seeing anyone discuss this here, so I figured I’d raise an important point: this style of tariffs is crushing for US manufacturing. While a universal tariff with no exceptions incentivizes domestic manufacturing, a selective tariff with specific industry exceptions is absolute poison. You might think, as the authors of this exemption did, “well then we will exempt computer parts.” Then people will simply impo…

Even universal tariffs with no exceptions is a problem. Many things cross US/Canada/Mexico border in the process being manufactured. And tariffs will stack up. Many advanced products (tech/chip, etc) are not entirely made in any single place. Some stuff is imported, and some is exported again, and tariffing the world, will also make the world tariff you. I think this is all around bad. Best case scenario the US has e…

He's already gotten what he wanted from it and bragged about it: so many leaders of different countries calling up and kissing his ass. He's certainly not going to give any of them what they wanted, and now they all have the taste of his ass in their mouths. At least they have something in common with Elon Musk, now.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#616

Post by jiggawatts » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:37 AM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #592

jiggawatts wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You basically go to war with the military you have. The war in Ukraine shows what a current-day war looks like: You rapidly expend stockpiled traditional weapons, and then rapidly ramp up low-cost drone manufacturing. Currently, the #1 drone manufacturer in the world is probably Ukraine, with Russia and China somewhere in the #2 and #3 spots. The United States is somewhere on the bottom of that list. Subsidising ci…

But Ukraine built that industry after the war started. And the Ukranian conflict is uniquely well suited to drones because of numerous factors which wouldn't apply in say, a fight over Taiwan - where the outcome would more or less be determined by who still had a floating Navy at the end of the day. No amount of 3D printed FPVs is going to bring down a modern warship - they're unlikely to even get near it (conversely…

> built that industry after the war started.

Because for the first year of the war was the "burn down existing cold war era stocks" phase. More importantly, neither side realised the impact that drones would have.

Now that every military has seen years of video clips on Telegram of tank after tank being blown up by $500 drones, the next war is going start with swarms of drones on day 1, not day 400.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#617

Post by DonHopkins » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

jpc0 wrote: post #590

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No problem"? It's not just that the prices are high; I can hardly get those guys to even answer the phone and give me a quote. I can get that board from China before I've gotten through to a local sales rep. Then when they do finally check their messages they want to fly out, meet me at my office, size up my operation and my budget, have a nice chat over dinner, and spend a few weeks pestering me with phone calls wi…

You are pretty confused about why this is. When the only market you ever had was high touch high cost low volume production then that is your default business model. The biggest issue is that Trump is pushing tariffs without first ramping up local manufacturing, the type of manufacturing you are looking for isn't _currently_ being catered for in the US. It may in the future depending on how things pan out, the bet Tr…

> think positive about your country

Like insisting the United States is 'rigged, crooked and evil'?

Trump insists the United States is 'rigged, crooked and evil':

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-in...

>“The Witch Hunt continues, and after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing. If I had what Hunter and Joe had, it would be the Electric Chair. Our Country is Rigged, Crooked, and Evil — We must bring it back, and FAST. Next stop, Communism!”

So do you have any shred of evidence he's backtracking on all the racism and misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and cruelty and corruption he overcommitted on?

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#618

Post by graycat » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:44 AM UTC

Computers and China? Hmm ....

For my next computer, e.g., for a Web server, considering an AMD processor, Gigabyte mother board, Western Digital disks (rotating and/or solid state), main memory, video display, etc.

Just checked, none of that comes from China!!! The businesses are in Taiwan, South Korea, the US. Manufacturing is in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea. The processor design, the US. The equipment for manufacturing the chips, Holland.

So, for my startup, I'm happy!

For a smart phone -- not much interested.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#619

Post by energy123 » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:46 AM UTC

soVeryTired wrote: post #613

energy123 wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite! A universal tariff is a tariff on all inputs that manufacturers need to be competitive. How will Ford or Tesla ever be competitive if all their inputs are 24% more expensive than Toyota's inputs? Autarky doesn't work. Juche doesn't work. Comparative advantage works, both theoretically and in practice if we study economic history.

Do you really believe in the comparative advantage argument though? Surely it’s only true if comparative advantage is fixed over time. And surely in order to leverage comparative advantage, an economy would need to know how good they would be at producing every possible good. There are good reasons to trade, but comparative advantage doesn’t feel like the correct theoretical underpinning to me.

> And surely in order to leverage comparative advantage, an economy would need to know how good they would be at producing every possible good.

Comparative advantage is an emergent property of trade that occurs naturally, it is the default state of being and can only be undermined by government policy.

You benefit from comparative advantage when you buy bread from the bakery instead of spending 2 hours a day baking your own bread.

Imagine how much poorer you'd be if the government put a large tax on you buying bread to force you to bake it yourself, in the name of self-sufficiency.

That's what's happening with these blanket tariffs, instead of targeting only critical defense manufacturing, Trump also wants t-shirt sweatshops to magically come back to the US despite only 4% unemployment. It's rank foolishness.

Re: Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

#620

Post by DonHopkins » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:47 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #524

righthand wrote: post #95

Why is no one highlighting how this is repeating history 8 years ago? I don’t get it, there’s this magical reporting gap where all of this is new strategy but it’s the exact same strategy. Why don’t we acknowledge this instead of searching for some new angle? Here are a bunch of links from 2018/2019: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/apple-dodges-iphone-tariff-a... https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s00…

> Why is no one highlighting how this is repeating history 8 years ago? Because it’s not? The tariffs which are currently in effect or soon to go into effect are so far out of line with anything in modern history that there is no comparison. The reason everyone is panicking is because people expected more of the same as 8 years ago but instead we got something massively worse, without a hint of cohesive strategy, and…

> people expected more of the same as 8 years ago

Only ignorant close minded gullible people who refused to listen to all the experts and intelligent people paying attention, who have all now been totally vindicated, after warning about it at the top of their lungs, and who are now fully entitled to say "I TOLD YOU SO".

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