Biden cranks up the heat on China with wall of tech tariffs The Biden administration's Chinese tariff hikes were formally announced on Tuesday including, among other items, a doubling on semiconductors and solar cells and a more than tripling on batteries. This is in addition to the quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese EVs reported on Monday. The White House statement called the tariffs …
"I’d later learn that the auto show had more than 100 new model debuts and concepts. That’s a far cry from the Detroit Auto Show last September, which only featured one fully new model. Two other models were refreshed versions of current cars already on sale. None were electric."
InsideEVs
Solar, wind, batteries, semiconductors, etc... are all in the same way.
"didn't believe American consumers will see any meaningful increase in prices they face." - Janet Yellen
I'll have whatever she's having. The tariffs are paid on the US side of the pond. Who does she think is at the end of the payment chain? Those in the middle are going to pass it on down the line until it's in the consumer's laps.
Where there is a viable home grown option, then sure, tariffs can possibly convince manufacturers to use the native source. However, when there is no other option (speaking mainly of semiconductors), then this is nothing more than another governmental tax grab.
....not that she cares.
I feel I'm stuck with this political shitshow because the alternative doesn't bear thinking about. But, seriously, how far do you think these people can go before they alienate the electorate? A lot of things like cars are essential to many -- possibly most -- Americans and their need to keep competition out or at artificially inflated prices just to keep Wall Street happy is wearing my patience thin.
We went down this route in the 1980s. It didn't work then and it most certainly won't work now.
> A lot of things like cars are essential to many -- possibly most -- Americans
Are these the same Americans whose job is under threat because the CCP is exporting subsidized goods and exploiting its own workforce?
Maybe they prefer to keep their job and use the money to buy cars that don't catch fire above 60mph even though they are a bit more expensive than the Chinese junk.
Depends how you measure. In terms of your average Joe on the street, the US is a pretty rough deal.
Negligible employment rights, paid time off, medical, crime problems, expensive education, skyrocketed cost of living, and government powerless to do anything to change the status quo. The economy might be doing OK but people on the ground aren't seeing it.
It won't affect car prices because no Chinese cars are being imported today. It won't affect semiconductors too much because very few chips of the type that cost more than a few cents are being imported into the US either. The only thing it will really affect is solar, but prices for panels are so low no that installation labor is the dominant cost now. The biggest impact on solar will be for utility scale projects, where the labor component is the smallest (it is easier to deploy tens of thousands of panels in a big field than it is to deploy a couple dozen on a pitched roof that will leak if things aren't done right)
The real effect is losing the chance at future price decreases for EVs that Chinese imports would bring, but that would come at the cost of decimating America's auto companies and entire automotive supply chain over time. That's millions of jobs, so even if consumers got a short term benefit from having much cheaper cars (new cars costing less than half what the cheapest car costs in the US - EV or ICE) would lose in the long term from how much havoc losing the entire auto industry would cause.
It is funny how techies will decry "protectionism" and say that if a US industry can't compete that's too bad, because it will benefit the rest of us. But when you mention offshoring, H1Bs, or the like suddenly they are all for taking measure to protect THEIR job and quality of life.
Where are they going to be sourced once Taiwan is cut off from the US? Also, a large portion of every supply chain across all kinds of industries runs through China. That's leverage that China must, by logic and precedence, exercise to their advantage. Supplying cut price products on credit to the US is not the end goal.
I seem to remember Trump was the spawn of the devil for introducing such tariffs and was bent on destroying global trade. Now it appears to be perfectly acceptable to the lefties, including Europe.
The problem is, the West can't compete with China, especially as they have cheap energy, low wages and no welfare costs like Europe has. You'll still buy the imports but will pay more for them, i.e. pay even MORE tax. Which can then be pissed up the wall on more welfare, more green lunacy, more red tape, more civil servants - ultimately making it even harder for Western industry to produce anything useful at a competitive price.
@Old Cynic
China does not have no welfare costs - it has various welfare systems (in cash terms for a citizen less than in UK (which has notoriously poor benefits system despite what the media claim - most of the UK benefits budget (housing benefit component) is essentially a financial support system for landlords*, very little of the cash is actual for a claimant to spend on non rent costs), but when you factor in lower cost of living in China, arguably better)
Despite "free trade" platitudes (more from some countries than others) - most countries (general exceptions those too small / poor to get away with it) have various forms of trade tariffs, internal subsidies - so free markets in international trade is a myth. These tit for tat / political point scoring trade issues are very common.
* UK rents essentially unregulated in terms of price that can be charged, and in many locations it is a massive rip off. Although only just over 1/3 of UK population rent, most landlords are private landlords, not many nice affordable schemes (UK used to have "council houses", affordable rents in houses the local council owned - most of that housing stock long sold off)
I seem to remember Trump was the spawn of the devil for introducing such tariffs ...
From an October 2019 Gallup Poll - "Americans' Views on Trade in the Trump Era" -
Most Americans thought it was "very" or "somewhat" important that Trump keep each of his three major promises on trade, with an outright majority saying one of them was very important:
- Establishing tariffs to discourage companies from relocating U.S. operations to other countries: 77% rated this very or somewhat important, including 51% very important.
- Renegotiating or withdrawing from NAFTA: 70% rated this important and 40% very important.
- Withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal: 57% said it was important, with 26% very important.
With higher import taxes their (theoretically) will be more opportunity to produce and sell domestically. In fact, the drop in China exports is often picked by Vietnam et al, assembling Chinese parts - in the first year the drop in Chinese imports was almost exactly equal to the rise in imports from Vietnam.
can then be pissed up the wall on more welfare, more green lunacy, more red tape, more civil servants - ultimately making it even harder for Western industry to produce anything useful at a competitive price -- Theoretically the relevant politicians/activists should respond to their election losses with some humility and tune in to the very human needs of their potential voters. I'm hoping that Democracy bears that out.
In the real world the choice is between giving your money to China for cheap goods or giving a fuckload more money to US companies that sell you the same stuff which they get from China cheaply while exlpoiting the slave labour and human rights abuses they criticise China for, then make a fucking obscene profit from.
Fucking hypocrites.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
