Acer signals 10% laptop price hike in US, blames Trump's extra China tariff

Acer has become one of the first major computer makers to confirm it will hike laptop prices in the US, citing fresh import tariffs on Chinese-made hardware imposed by the Trump administration. Acer CEO Jason Chen told The Telegraph over the weekend the Taiwan-based hardware maker would be raising prices on laptops shipped …

[mark l 2]

Who knew that putting a tariff on imports of stuff made in the place where everything gets manufactured these days, would cause end users to start paying more?

I am shocked that such as thing could happen! No one warned of price rises when the Orangutan promised to get prices down by putting a extra cost on getting them imported to the US.

Its fine though cos Elon will just cut all government spending from now on so America will be saved from price rises since no one will have any money to spend it on things anymore.

[MiguelC]

And how about those egg prices, down much?

[Roland6]

Don’t worry, I’m sure it won’t be long before chlorine is either deemed woke or a tariff imposed on unchlorinated chicken imports.

[Brian 3]

wait til the farmers go bust

[Snake]

RE: farmers go bust

That'll never happen. U.S. farm subsidies are nice and fat and never are a question, because business welfare is OK as long as it's for your own voting district.

[DS999]

Re: RE: farmers go bust

As long as Musk is allowed to run runshod over the government cutting stuff unconstitutionally there is no guarantee that any supplemental farm funding approved by congress wouldn't be canceled out by DOGE. You think he cares about egg farmers?

Already there are republican congressmen squawking about this, just not very loudly because they are afraid of upsetting Dear Leader. Wait until they find out that RFK Jr plans to bring stem cell research back to the US government, something the republican party has fought against for decades! He just announced that as part of a list of things like horse dewormer that the FDA will now be conducting research in to improve everyone's health!

[John Brown (no body)]

And how about those egg prices, down much?"

It seems to be primarily down to birdflu. And guess who got sacked over the weekend and guess who has now U-turned and is trying to hire the Dept. of Ag. birdflu specialists back.and cancel the firings? Musk and his minions really don't seem to be thinking things through at all until after the fact. I though DoGE had no powers and was advisory only, the final decisions to be made by Trump? Or is Trump just signing everything Musk fires at him and not bothering with "piddling details". It's not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last. I wonder how many of the IRS sackings will have to be reversed when tax filing season hits its peak?

[Tron]

Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

If Americans wouldn't like a tax rise of 1% or 2%, they ain't seen nuthin' yet.

This makes the Republicans the party of (very) high taxation. But the policy of Juche isn't a free ride. Ask a North Korean.

And there is no escaping. If your kit contains so much as a single blob of Chinese solder, the tariffs go on.

Getting stuff through customs may also take a while.

The more JIT your supply chain, the sooner the pain. Once the inventory has gone, the inflationary spiral takes off.

We went through the damage this causes with Brexit. Now it is America's turn. Buckle up.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

>And there is no escaping. If your kit contains so much as a single blob of Chinese solder, the tariffs go on.

Luckily only 10% though. If it came from the Evil Empire to the north it would be 25%

[Rikki Tikki]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

Or the Even More Evil Empire to the southwest across the Big Pond. Apparently it is single-handedly killing the US aluminium industry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

With a bit of luck they will limit themselves to conquering Hawaii

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

But were the tariffs on China not already 25% before FOCF added another 10%?

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

Not far enough south. OP was referring to Australian aluminium. Large chunks of the country are made of bauxite.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

But tariffs aren't inflationary. The US Center for Pure American Economics and Apple Pie and Motherhood and Football said so in a paper published on Twitter.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

Expect the US to adopt measures of inflation that ignore tariffs, rahter like measures of inflation that ignore housing costs. That fuelled low interest rates that went into climbing house prices, unsustainable loans and the great crash of 2008..

[Roland6]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

> rahter like measures of inflation that ignore housing costs.

The laugh is the UK inflation measures does still include tobacco products - yes those things they have been trying for decad3s to get people to give up. A significant element in the recent “higher than expected” inflation figure was down to the increase in duty on tobacco products…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

Just because the state may want you not to use something has little relevance to measuring average consumer prices - they need a basket that focuses on a representative sample of what people are actually buying (and about 10% of the population still buy tobacco). Vapes are far more widely bought, but because the taxes on fags are so much higher, the UK tobacco market is worth around 6x as much as the vape market - so as a proportion of spending, makes more sense to include tobacco.

[Roland6]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

You missed the point, the basket is to some extent politically determined, hence why as pointed out by Doctor Syntax, the UK inflation rate excludes housing costs. I was pointing out that if a government wished to (massively) increase tax rates on tobacco products -which they don’t want people to buy, whilst also wanting to “ ring inflation down”, it makes political sense to exclude tobacco products from the inflation index basket.

If we follow your line of reasoning, we really should be including the price of street drugs in the inflation figures….

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Tariffs are taxes with nationalist spin.

>If we follow your line of reasoning, we really should be including the price of street drugs in the inflation figures….

That would be terribly inflationary. What with every arrest involving a drugs with a an estimated street value of £1M

[Ball boy]

Expect increases for non-imported goods too.

Sure, there's not many that don't contain at least some parts sourced from China but when all your competitor products go up by 10%, any vendor with an eye on their margins will jump at the chance to bump theirs by 5-9% just because (not immediately - that's too obvious and will generate comment - but give them a few months then watch the prices tick upwards).

Next, you can be sure these additional costs will be rolled into the products and services the hardware buyers supply to their clients. Sure, not the full 10% but a component of it. Aside from International buyers - who are also at the mercy of currency fluctuations which may or may not hide this additional cost - the person paying the price for these import tariffs is...The end user, A.K.A a voter. Let's hope they make the connection between their emptier wallets and gubbermint policy.

[IGotOut]

This is exactly what happened last time.

He slapped a tariff on imported washing machines.

Rather than making the imported ones look more expensive than the few domestic ones, so consumers switched,the home made ones simply made their more expensive as well.

Go late stage capitalism!

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

And the manufacturers increased the price of dryers (which weren't tariffed) by the same amount

[localgeek]

What you've stated is so manifestly true, I'm genuinely surprised that someone could downvote it.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

> I'm genuinely surprised that someone could downvote it.

Russian bots

[Casca]

Or the usual TDS shouters

[Roland6]

The usual way to disguise a price increase, is to announce a new model or restyled model.

Suspect this style of thinking contributed to Dell’s recent change in product labelling, so people can’t easily compare…

[Anonymous Coward]

We were told the exporter pays the tariff! What happened to the ERS?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we were told the exporting country pays the tariff! What happened to the ERS?

[Paul Herber]

They charged tariffs twice!

[may_i]

Not Unexpected

This really isn't unexpected is it? If you have to pay a 10% tariff, it's part of the landed cost. Nobody is expecting the importer to eat the 10% are they?

I'm sure all other importers will follow suit

That people and businesses in the USA rely on computer hardware manufactured in China maybe got missed in some analysis before starting a trade war?

How many motherboard production factories are there in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not Unexpected

Our legal eagles are already on the job: moving fabrication to other Asian countries, sourcing components from different places, changing the plastics so they're no longer printed 'made in China'.

Anon for obvious reasons.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Not Unexpected

Made in Taiwan sounds so much better. After all, China is just a break-away province of Taiwan.

[Roland6]

Re: Not Unexpected

Thinking of the UK's obsession with “Freeport’s”, and the case a few years back about data held on Microsoft servers in Dublin being regarded as being in the USA and thus far game for US agencies to acccess.

Is a factory in a Freeport actually in the UK or could it be treated as being in the US if it were “owned” by a US company. Taking this to the next stage, TSMC could for the duration of a production run of chips for the US market become part of the US…

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Not Unexpected

Ironically TSMC have the opposite problem. Their factories in Arizona are in a freeport for tax complicated reasons - and so are subject to US import tariffs

[Roland6]

Re: Not Unexpected

Yes and No,

I am a little surprised Acer are increasing (US list) prices rather than adding another asterisk: price excludes US tariffs, sales taxes and p&p.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Not Unexpected

"maybe got missed in some analysis"

What analysis? If you know what you're doing you don't need analysis.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Not Unexpected

If

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Not Unexpected

Well, he knows that he knows what he's doing. What else is there to know?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Not Unexpected

Do you think he knows that he knows what he is doing or does he makes sure he doesn't know what he knows for security reasons ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

You voted for it.

Enjoy.

[ecofeco]

Re: Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

They will never wake up.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: They will never wake up

Of course not. That would make them woke.

[Like a badger]

Re: Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

"You voted for it. Enjoy."

It is worth keeping a careful eye on the Orange Felon's popularity ratings at home. Across a range of polls, that popularity has been generally increasing since he took office. Since (a) gullible merkins believe his rantings, and (b) inflation will all be the fault of Democrats, migrants, Mexico/Canada/EU/China, it is entirely feasible that half or more of the US population will continue to suck up his rancid bilge.

Ask yourself, do you think somebody who voted for perhaps the most flawed candidate in any fair election ever will believe that Acer's price rise is because of Trump's tariffs? Or will they choose to believe that Acer's price rise is because Acer choose not to manufacture in the good ole US of A?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

Why wouldn't his popularity be increasing ?

Inflation is down, stock market is up, Canada is clamouring to be 51st state, he has solved the war in Gaza and all the immigrants have left and Mexico is paying for it all?

What kind of subversive pinko deep state news have you been watching ?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

...and employment rates are skyrocketing! All those sacked federal employees walked directly into better, more high paying jobs. And all they and to do was learn to say "would you like fries with that?"

[Casca]

Re: Wake up time for the stupid and the gullible

You forgot that Greenland is just begging to be taken over på the US

[Felonmarmer]

Global economies spread (some of) the pain

I expect prices outside of the US to increase also to subsidise US customers. In many ways the orange stain filling the US right now taints the rest of the world.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

I'm not sure I follow the logic. Lower sales to the US should encourage discounts for other markets as supplier seek to make for the loss. Of course, this will only encourage arbitrage and the black market – one of the main reasons for GATT and the WTO in the first place.

[Felonmarmer]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

Global company is charged 25% to import laptops to US.

Raises prices by 15% to customers worldwide.

Takes a relative loss in the US (but improvers market share compared to any competitors who don't)

Make the money back in other countries (would lose market share in those countries maybe)

So it depends on the relative markets and sales.

And as we pay the same in pounds as US customers pay in dollars a lot of the time regardless of currency rates, would we even notice?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

Why take a loss in the US? Sell what you can sell there and make up for the loss by selling more in ROTW? If you start to play games such as trying to cross-subsidise the US market you'll end up selling less than your competitors who are smarter, ratchet up your prices more to compensate, sell less still and either catch on or disappear up your own fundament. The ROTW doesn't owe the US a living whatever Trump thinks.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

This chain of statements is incomplete and makes little sense: what does "it depends on relative markets and sales" mean?

As I noted, and is already observable for products where the US has imposed unilateral tariffs (solar cells, lithium batteries, etc.), tariffs do often reduce sales in one place, but encourage them elsewhere through lower prices. If market distortion persists you'll start seeing high value products transported "illegally" around tariffs: think MacBook Pros with all the bells and whistles bought sans VAT and carried as personal luggage. But, as the US simply isn't able to produce all the products, they will continue to be imported and customers will have to pay more them.

The tariffs are also poorly defined because they're supposed, at the same time, to encourage lower imports of affected goods and serve as a new source of revenue.

[doublelayer]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

That's not how it would work. Instead of a 15% rise everywhere, they would treat every market separately. That means that, if putting the whole 25% on the US market means people won't buy them, they may use a lower increase and take a lower profit on those sales. If they can't do that because they'd make no profit, then they would just not sell there. If they increased their prices for other regions, then people who didn't would take their sales instead. The structure you propose only works for companies that don't have much competition, so for instance, Apple could possibly get away with that. For most laptop makers, though, someone who sees that Acer's prices are 15% higher would probably just buy someone else's laptop, and to prevent themselves losing that sale, Acer wouldn't add that markup when they don't have to. Even in the case of Apple where they can raise prices and still make sales, they have no reason to subsidize the US market that way. The US would probably get a higher price increase, with increases in other regions making up for the lower sales.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

>someone who sees that Acer's prices are 15% higher would probably just buy someone else's laptop,

Most laptop sales, and the majority by profit, are to corporate.

We might swap from Dell to Lenovo but the process is going to take 3 years and we aren't doing it for a 10% saving. Especially if Dell would just hike the costs of our servers and storage by 20% if we did.

And we all know that all the corporate brands are going to raise prices by exactly the same amount - that's what free market competition is all about.

[ThomH]

Re: Global economies spread (some of) the pain

His voters are getting what they deserve whilst the rest of us are getting what his voters deserve.

[bill 27]

Tariff - A Federal sales tax.

[Rich 2]

Check out…

Gamers Nexus made a video about recent price hikes in the US - I’m no gamer but it makes for very interesting and amusing viewing

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8s4hxa2TjWY