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White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods

theverge.com

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

#71

Post by jandrese »

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.

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 are otherwise innocent because unbeknownst to them they bought resisters or capacitors or silicon plates from a bad actor.

A smart approach is just not feasible at this scale.

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

#72

Post by luma »

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…

I understand the rationale, which is pretty clearly laid out here: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Section%20301%20FINAL.P...

What I don't understand is the response. The burden of this cost has entirely been placed upon US businesses purchasing products from (in many cases) the only place you can buy them and then assembling the completed product in the US with US labor.

As someone doing small-scale production in the US, the simple way for me to avoid these tariffs is to have China assemble everything. Finished consumer goods have been explicitly avoided in this list. Can you explain to me how this is helping US manufacturing?

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

#73

Post by rsynnott »

mreome wrote: post #45
forkLding wrote: post #25

Wonder how Apple is taking this EDIT: Interesting, didn't know Apple manufacturing policies until now.

Apple doesn't assemble their devices domestily. This tariff does not include complete phones. I'm sure they are perfectly fine with these tarrifs, they are a barrier for potential competitors who don't already have established supply and assembly facilities in China/Tiwaian.

They assemble Mac Pros in the US. They've also apparently been considering assembling some other stuff in the US; I assume those plans have come to a screeching halt.

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

#74

Post by dnomad »

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…

Your argument is that there's some super-intelligent strategy at work here but it must be kept secret in order for it to work.

This is literally baseless nonsense.

America has a single goal that is beyond transparent: prevent the rise of Chinese apex-technological manufacturers. Everything was okay when China was making shoes and Christmas lights but now they're fabricating increasingly sophisticated computer chips [0], producing more electronic cars than the rest of the world combined [1], and kicking out all sorts of fancy 5G telecom equipment that does more but costs significantly less than what Western manufactuers can offer [2].

The "strategy" here is too little and far too late. Trump's only victory here will be, like so many other victories, purely symbolic: his base might get riled up and support him for taking on the "Chinese" who "stole" all their jobs... but China's competitiveness here won't be affected. Cutting off Americans from China's competitive electronics will just drive up prices in America and make American companies less competitive on the global market. The rest of the world (the other 7.3 billion on the planet) absolutely love China's cheap but capable electronic products. The only thing at this point that will actually stop China's growth here is literal bombs and tanks.

[0] http://mckinseychina.com/whats-next-for-chip-makers-in-china...

[1] https://nextshark.com/china-now-makes-electric-cars-every-co...

[2] https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/mobile-net...

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

#75

Post by sremani »

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.

When two elephants fight, many ants die. There is no precision guided ammo in trade wars. Its brute force!

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

#76

Post by debt »

jandrese wrote: post #71
debt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#77

Post by anon23423532 »

tehbeard wrote: post #61
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.

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 no leverage here.

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

#78

Post by EpicEng »

tehbeard wrote: post #61
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.

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

Sure, I didn't mean it that way. I was referring to what I assume the down voters were thinking, but I wasn't very clear.

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

#79

Post by hugh4life »

https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-s...

"The 284 product lines being proposed will now undergo further review in a public notice and comment process, including a hearing. After completion of this process, USTR will issue a final determination on the products that would be subject to the additional duties.

USTR will provide an opportunity for the public to request exclusion of a particular product from the additional 25 percent duty. USTR will publish the details of this product exclusion process in a subsequent Federal Register notice."

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

#80

Post by russellbrandom »

Washuu wrote: post #33
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.

Sorry to hear you're getting hit by this! I wrote the Verge piece, and would love to talk to you about how this is affecting your business plans. Drop me a line at russell@theverge.com.
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