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

bloomberg.com

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

#691

Post by sebazzz »

_heimdall wrote: post #654
sebazzz wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> small business, manufacturing, small town American succeed That can only happen if you ban all imports of anything those small business manufacturers would made, and be content with the prices going up so those Americans can really be paid who make those products. If that is not possible, then it is either slavery, poorly paid illegal immigrants or back to some other low-wage country like we’ve done for the past de…

> That can only happen if you ban all imports of anything those small business manufacturers would made Consumers could always make this decision for themselves and pick domestic over foreign. It seems extremely unlikely, but I also see bringing back manufacturing without massive economic shock as extremely unlikely. If I want a pipe dream, it be for manufacturing to come back because consumers actually care that it…

> Consumers could always make this decision for themselves and pick domestic over foreign.

In a free market, consumers _do_ decide for themselves. It is simply so, that price is the primary factor for many consumers. Especially in a society where living paycheck to paycheck is normal - but really in any society.

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

#692

Post by nikanj »

Eavolution wrote: post #689
Animats wrote: post #372

Since last night, anyway. The people who make shipping work are frantically trying to keep up. One of the biggest customs brokers posts updates twice a day on weekdays. Last update 4 PM Friday, so they haven't caught the biggest reversal. If tariff rates change while in transit, the bond paid before the item was shipped may now be insufficient. So the container goes into storage (where?) until Customs and Border Prot…

Hang on are tarriffs not effective on date of purchase? I'm not American but it seems madness to apply them at any other time as then no one knows what will actually need paid if you've someone like Trump changing them frequently.

They are effective on the day of passing customs to the US

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

#693

Post by _heimdall »

sebazzz wrote: post #691
_heimdall wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That can only happen if you ban all imports of anything those small business manufacturers would made Consumers could always make this decision for themselves and pick domestic over foreign. It seems extremely unlikely, but I also see bringing back manufacturing without massive economic shock as extremely unlikely. If I want a pipe dream, it be for manufacturing to come back because consumers actually care that it…

> Consumers could always make this decision for themselves and pick domestic over foreign. In a free market, consumers _do_ decide for themselves. It is simply so, that price is the primary factor for many consumers. Especially in a society where living paycheck to paycheck is normal - but really in any society.

Price doesn't have to be the primary factor though, that was my point. People can choose for whatever reasons they want, we just don't currently seem to care where manufacturing is being done.

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

#694

Post by Doches »

re-thc wrote: post #640
Animats wrote: post #372

Since last night, anyway. The people who make shipping work are frantically trying to keep up. One of the biggest customs brokers posts updates twice a day on weekdays. Last update 4 PM Friday, so they haven't caught the biggest reversal. If tariff rates change while in transit, the bond paid before the item was shipped may now be insufficient. So the container goes into storage (where?) until Customs and Border Prot…

> Consumer version: expect to see some empty shelves, rejected orders, and higher prices for the next few weeks. Make that the next few years at this rate. > Customs and Border Protection is trying to keep up. There are still people there? DOGE hasn't hit them up?

Why would they? If there’s one agency that’s spiritually aligned with DOGE — in terms of incompetence, malice, and sheer cruelty — it’s ICE/CBP.

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

#695

Post by [deleted] »

jajko wrote: post #678
Aurornis wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Lol there was no 'cohesive strategy' 8 years ago, what the heck you wtite about. You suffer some memory loss? He was chaotic, he was doing ego polishing reality show from day 1. The only difference was a 'barrier of sanity' that people around him formed, dampening his bipolar outbursts into more reasonable actions (or lack of thereof, often without his knowledge). He eventually fired all of them, forgot that part? No…

[deleted]

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

#696

Post by energy123 »

geysersam wrote: post #676
cardanome wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is good that you paid attention to economics 101 but we don't live in the 19th century anymore and economic theory has progressed a bit since Ricardo. We don't have pure free market economies. Neither in China nor in the USA nor anywhere else. The see big monopolistic companies dominating most markets. We see an closer interlink between state and private corporations. Even just with the currency manipulation that…

Absolutely agree. It's ridiculous that low wage labor is considered a "comparative advantage". It's an advantage to capital owners perhaps, but certainly not to workers. And like you said, advantages are not static. In my opinion it's intrinsically valuable to have a diverse regional economy. Culture and economy are fundamentally inseparable, imagine a society where everyone is doing the same thing because of "compar…

This aestheticization of factory jobs is something I've noticed to be driving the New Right's worldview. It's not dissimilar to and no less dangerous than the aesthetic fixation on the agrarian economy of Mao and Pol Pot.

Frankly, no, sweatshops are not important to the cultural fabric of a country.

The US has problems with housing affordability, with medical costs, and with service sector costs emerging from Baumol's cost disease, which are all things that will get worse with tariffs, ranging from higher construction costs, to higher pharmaceutical prices, to less service employees making the cost disease worse.

It's also untrue that comparative advantage only benefits capital. Consumers are hurt by higher prices and less job opportunities driving down demand on the labor market. This worldview of a zero sum contest between capital and labor is a populist fiction.

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

#697

Post by Aurornis »

Eavolution wrote: post #689
Animats wrote: post #372

Since last night, anyway. The people who make shipping work are frantically trying to keep up. One of the biggest customs brokers posts updates twice a day on weekdays. Last update 4 PM Friday, so they haven't caught the biggest reversal. If tariff rates change while in transit, the bond paid before the item was shipped may now be insufficient. So the container goes into storage (where?) until Customs and Border Prot…

Hang on are tarriffs not effective on date of purchase? I'm not American but it seems madness to apply them at any other time as then no one knows what will actually need paid if you've someone like Trump changing them frequently.

Applied at time of passing through customs.

More typical policy would give 90 days notice so businesses could plan ahead. This policy was implemented far too fast with far too high of numbers and now it’s also changing rapidly. It doesn’t make sense.

> I'm not American but it seems madness to apply them at any other time

I’m American and I fully agree it’s madness. This administration clearly doesn’t understand or even care how businesses work. They just thought this was going to be a chest-thumping bargaining chip that caused other countries to come begging at the negotiation table.

It’s not working and now they’re panicking. They don’t want to look weak by backing down so we’re suffering.

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

#698

Post by seanalltogether »

jm4 wrote: post #63
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #13

Seems a bit anti-business to have an unequal playing field just for the star-bellied sneetches. Also silly that those with the biggest piles of capital are getting exemptions when the whole purpose of this exercise is to spur local investment in manufacturing. If anything, small businesses below some threshold of revenue/staff should be getting exemptions.

It’s total bullshit. Part of my business involves direct import and that’s now impacted by tariffs. The cherry on top is that what I import is not and cannot be produced in the U.S. I source a number of other products from suppliers in the U.S. and literally every single one of them is impacted by tariffs somehow, whether it’s ingredients, packaging, etc. that comes from somewhere else. Some of my materials originate…

I really do sympathize with you, given how much small businesses are often reliant on imports and often don't have enough money in reserve to wait out this chaos. There are going to be a LOT of small businesses going bankrupt over the next few months, while these big companies have much deeper pockets and can weather this storm.

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

#699

Post by lukas099 »

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.

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

Maybe I'm not getting what you're saying, but I don't think so. The point of comparative advantage is that even if country A is better at making guns and butter than B, A is better off only making guns or butter and trading to B for the other.

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