Prez Trump's $60bn China tariff plan to hit tech, communications, aerospace industries US President Donald Trump's planned tariffs on goods imported into America from China could hit the tech industry – and ergo, you the customer – particularly hard. The tariffs, announced in a memorandum on Thursday by the Tweeter-in-Chief on Thursday and fleshed out by the office of the US government's trade representative ( …
China will soon introduce its first airliner, the C919, after which it will no longer buy from Boeing or Airbus.
China made a deal to borrow AMD's technology, so soon it will no longer need to buy from either AMD or Intel. It's not a coincidence that the CEO of AMD is Chinese.
China already convinced the top railway manufacturers to foolishly share their technology, paving the way for China's world-class trainset.
The problem always has been that China does not play by the same rules. Western companies expect China not to steal their IP and buy products from them for years down the road, but China will do anything to become self-sufficient.
RE: "...China will do anything to become self-sufficient."
Whereas the USA will do anything to pay less, for everything, with one exception: The Military. Other than connecting doorbells and juicers to the internet the only thing this country now seems able to do with any kind of proficiency is blow things up and threaten to. And all the current leadership can seem to do is anything that doesn't involve thoughtfulness and intelligence, and does involve being strong and tough. Its very dispiriting.
"Whereas the USA will do anything to pay less"
hopefully THIS means building robotic factories in the USA.
In China (and many other upwardly mobile far east nations, from my experience), their underpaid employees are often "thrown" at solving a manufacturing need. It's a bit like the keystone cops. In the west, people think they're too good to count a million washers, and weigh the bag instead, estimating the number. Over there, they count, and throw an unlimited number of 'bodies' at the problem until it's done.
Yes, out of a million washers they were short a few hundred. [this was Singapore, back in the 90's]
So, back to the 21st century...
Let's say you want a limited production run of circuit boards. A company in China will probably have a big workbench filled with employees working on your device, using the 'tweezer' pick and place method. In the USA, a robot will do it, and a tech will load the parts reels and put the finished circuit boards into the reflow oven. Even visual inspection can be automated. Interestingly, one US company's manufacturing price is actually COMPETITIVE with at least one well known company in China [all things considered].
What China has going at the moment is a lack of "polluting" costs and better 'location proximity' for suppliers. They did this deliberately.
Let's say you have a resistor maker, a capacitor maker, a semiconductor maker, and a board maker, all in proximity to an assembly company. It doesn't take "rocket surgery" to figure out that having all of these NEXT TO EACH OTHER (effectively) will GREATLY improve the process and lower inventory levels [leading to lower costs].
THEN, they have an UNLIMITED SUPPLY of "low wage" employees, which (for now) are cheaper than building robots. And that's who is building our "stuff" at the moment.
Couple that with a LACK of environmentalist wackos (in China) complaining daily about the MERE PRESENCE of hazardous materials, along with the expense of disposing of such industrial waste (they just pump it into the air, etc.), and the frequent sue-balls and H.R. nightmare and "other regulations" and other problems associated with the "sue-ball" shadow economy, and building in China looks pretty damn good by comparison... [from the "can you blame them" depaertment]
I'd like to see a lot of "those things" made HERE instead. With robots. And clean processes. And once our industries stop going "over there" and invest "over here" to get the robotic plants up and running, because the tariffs make it worth while, we'll see a shift in manufacturing. And that's the point.
Perhaps Geoffrey you have not been paying attention to what has been going on and the facts around me trade imbalances and extremely totem deals our former “leaders” have done that has led to closing of industries , outsourcing of jobs etc. Thoughtfulness? What are you looking at? When you go shopped my I suppose you look for the most expensive item to buy... I suppose if you get sacked, that’s ok .... your comments are absurd...
Around 80% of the jobs lost in the US manufacturing sector were because of automation, not outsourcing.
As for outsourcing in other industries, you can blame that on your corporate overlords that own your government and only care about the next quarter's results and their grossly inflated pay packet.
Outsourcing isn't the problem, offshoring is the problem. Most businesses exist because of outsourcing, its just paying someone else to do work you don't want to do or are unable to do. Like having an accountant do your taxes or having a mechanic fix your car or buying butter (or pacemakers) instead of making your own. Offshoring is having this work done in India.
Whereas the western countries always played by the same rules, ensuring equal and fair treatment of everyone involved?
Except, they didn't. Check the history books, start with colonialism if you want some egregious examples. That's why the WTO made such a big difference: finally some countries agreed on some common rules and it made all the difference for trade.
Look up what Charles Dickens and other 19th century authors thought of the American attitude to copyright and, if you're American, say that again with a straight face.
To a large extent what's happened with China can be traced directly back to the total trade embargo placed on it in the 50s and 60s following the Korean War. When I was in University in the mid/late 60s one of our lecturers visited China (and got vilified in our papers for going to see what they were doing). I was at a talk he gave afterwards. The main point he made was that the embargo gave a huge boost to Chinese manufacturing. I remember him saying that all their older lab equipment carried European and American brands, but all their new stuff was Chinese made and was doing the job. He also said that the embargo had two effects: apart from pissing them off, it also made them determined to never again be dependent on foreign technology.
So, regardless of what you think of the Chinese following the 19th century American model of IP theft, its obvious that, far from damaging the Chinese, the 50s/60s trade embargo was the kick start that made them into an industrial nation. Now add in the US Corporate fixation on driving down costs by outsourcing manufacture to the cheapest bidder while ignoring the fact that if you don't pay local workers a decent wage they can't afford your products, and the current situation looks, um, inevitable.
Also, employ Control Theory 101.
Turn on some trade action and watch the response. Just when the response peaks, turn off the trade action. Then watch that response and just when it settles, turn on the trade action again. Repeat endlessly.
E.g. Embargo to preempt their tariff, resultant price rise in their market, when prices peak then flood the market using stockpile, watch for price collapse. Repeat.
It's a driven-in-phase, positive feedback, oscillator. It's a bit like pushing a swing. The goal is to build up the maximum possible amplitude of economic chaos within the target.
Any investments in arranging their own production are destroyed by the carefully timed price chaos.
For comedic effect, issue sweet apologies along with each change of state. As if each flip-flop was being done as a kindly response to the target's complaints about the previous flip-flop.
My goal here is to discourage trade wars. By making them Nuclear.
On Australian TV show Planet America they reckon an iPhone 9 costs $US 341 to make from parts manufactured in Japan, South Korea and maybe the USA, and then it's assembled in China.
The Chinese assembly contributes only US $22 to the total cost, but the phone will then be classified as "Made in China" and import duty levied appropriately.
Basically, Trump is fed up with Chinese organizations ripping off, …
Not really as it has little or no effect on him or his business. But it plays wells at rallies and gives good photo opportunities. Remember the steel and aluminium tariffs? Most of the countries have secured exemptions but that didn't stop Trump posing in front of factory workers again. Of course, the exemptions will then be presented as a negotiating gambit gained by playing hardball. I suspect the China stuff might lead to more of the same and the Trump chumps will lap it up as long as they profit from the current upswing in the global economy.
More worrying for us all is the appointment of that cretin Bolton to replace McMaster as National Security Director. Trump is now busy filling his cabinet with toadying morons. Who knows where that will lead to.
Doubt Bolton will last very long, tbh. He's very much an ideologue, with a short temper and incapable of playing nicely with others. In this administration, that means he's likely to get roasted by intrigues and quickly find that Trump strongly disagrees with him on a lot of issues very quickly. For example, Trump's current stance on the Iraq war ("I always said it was a mistake") is wildly at odds with Bolton, who still insists it was a roaring success.
And no, Bolton is not 'respected worldwide'. He's not even widely respected within the Republican party.
It is usual for animals to chew legs off to escape traps. Trump as usual follows his own drummer - he's chewing off his own leg to fall into a trap.
For how long has the United States been preaching Free Trade? Eg, trade without tariffs and whatnot.
So it depends on who is imposing the tariffs? Yeah, right.
Not surprisingly, The Dump doesn't want a tariff on clothing.... anyone would think that he doesn't have clothing lines made in China (or his daughter)...
Of course, silly me... why would he have things made in China when he criticises tech companies for not making in the US... only a really hypocritical person would do that!
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