Tech tariff turmoil continues as Trump admin exempts some electronics, then promises to bring taxes back The Trump administration’s strategy to use tariffs on imports as an incentive for businesses to move their manufacturing plants to the USA took a new turn over the weekend after it announced exemptions for some goods, denied the exemptions were new, then said it plans further tariffs on high-tech goods. To understand what's …
Our own companies put us in this situation threatening national security to save a few bucks. Our govt didn't stop them. Those of us in national security sectors of the govt were labeled cranks and fools when we pointed out what was happening. Undoing this isn't going to be easy, nor cheap, and I frankly don't think many people have the stomach for it.
If Trump hadn't shit on all our allies, we could have tried a cooperative approach with Japan, Germany, France, et al to onshore various segments amongst ourselves over the next several years. The most we can hope for is they do it as we've proven ourselves completely mental and incapable of sanely managing our own affairs.
But, the same forces that helped push us to where we are, are also at work in those countries. Let's hope their citizens learn from our stupidity and change course or else we'll all be in the fascist shitter together.
To play Devil's advocate, ...
Companies did what companies do: Maximize profit. It can be manufactured cheaper, elsewhere? Lets do that! Elsewhere doesn't have the same environmental or labor restrictions as here? Great, it's cheaper!
The larger the company the greater the offense. As companies mature, they inherently go from a stance of getting new things done (new sources of revenue!) and the investment into those things that is required - and which is often inefficient and wasteful to some extent, wealth redistribution - to one of trimming fat and minimizing undue expenses. As a company matures, it slims down staff, redesigns products to save a few cents here and there. (Use a cheaper LCD screen that has to be mounted upside down? $10/unit? 2000 units? Hardware cost saved is greater than developer cost required!) This trimming makes things unscrutable, unchangeable, and unable to handle things like supply-chain disruptions well, while also resulting in supply-chain and (remote) manufacturer lock-in. (problems with localized knowledge, but that's largely when they shed the expensive design staff in slimming down.)
I counter: it's not the companies, as *all* companies of all types will strive to do this (optimize), but rather policy errors that _allow_ unfavorable practices to be pursued, shifts liabilities to places that don't regulate them, and etc.
Made the top 0.1% more wealthy.
FTFY.
The US Government manage to spend £1.9tn annually on healthcare for a population of around 350m
The UK Government manage to spend £230bn annually on UNIVERSAL healthcare for a population of around 70m
Something seriously wrong there to spend much more for worse health outcomes.
It turns out that as the proportion of a country's wealth held by one small group increases, the more people will vote for more extreme right-wing politicians. There are various suggestions of why this might be so, some of them very unkind to human nature. Note that this connection is not specific to any one country, and it goes back at least to the 19th century.
This is why "centrist" parties that do nothing about reducing this wealth gap when in government struggle to stay relevant (e.g. Democrats, Labour).
It's not so much couldn't be bothered, but given the choice of the woeful campaign put out by the Democrats, and the shit show that was Trump, they said no thanks to both. I'm guessing that a good deal of them are regretting their decision now, and would have held their nose and gone out to vote.
"Something seriously wrong there to spend much more for worse health outcomes."
Does America have something resembling the NHS? Because if they're part/whole paying the ridiculous rates being demanded by the for-profit medical services, that's why they'll be paying more and getting less.
Yes, medicare for those over 65 or some disabilities, and Medicaid for those not well off, though access to it Is very restricted.
That's why the slogan "medicare for all" is used by those seeking universal coverage.
I'm not really sure about the details of Medicaid - all the horror stories we hear from America seem to imply no such thing exists. Maybe one of our American friends can offer some insight.
Not American but from what I've read/heard Medicare & Medicaid are actually quite good, and are even more efficient than the NHS is in terms of currency spent per patient per treatment or similar.
However, as you say, trying to get said treatment via Medicaid is extremely difficult.
Make production more efficient so the people can enjoy more food&stuff.
Oh you sweet summer child.
The entire history of American capitalism is one of monopoly, fraud and outright deadly malfeasance that was only brought under control by relentless regulation and severe penalties. This is DOCUMENTED history.
Or did you forget the /s tag?
This is precisely why boards of corporations only having a responsibility to shareholders is wrong.
If the boards of corporations had an additional fiduciary duty of care to consider the impacts of their decisions on their employees, their customers, the communities in which they operate, the environment, and the long-term value of the business, the world would be a much better place.
Instead we've learned the hard way that late-stage short-termist capitalism shits on everything it can (including the corpse of it's own granny that it sold a while back) to make a few bucks.
I get the feeling that might have been said with a hint of irony.
Gosh - is it really over 24 years since https://www.theregister.com/2001/02/01/the_color_of_irony/ ?
I hadn't seen the the colour of irony page. Brilliant!
Pity the Vulture doesn't support a corresponding mark up in the comments. Something like -
<intent=droll>something mild</intent>
<intent=irony>...
<Intent=sarcasm-mild>...
<Intent=sarcasm-biting>...
<Intent=smarmy>...
<Intent=flippancy>...
<intent=offensive>...
"Additionally, out-and-out jokes will be preceded by the following graphic warning: [JOKE ALERT]"
24 years ago, this was a joke, in 2025, real life Twitter has now decreed:
"From 10 April, accounts which impersonate another user or person must use key words such as "fake" or "parody" at the start of their account names." as Twitterati are no longer capable of recognising parody when they see it unless handed it on a plate.
To be fair, those people still using Twitter for anything other than following very specific communities, are unlikely to understand the concept of irony even after it has been carefully and patiently explained to them. After all, these are the same people who think adding tariffs makes prices go down.
A well run company is concerned with the long term, and with risk management.
A well run company will consider its supply chains long into the future. A well run company will consider the risk of external shocks and manage itself to provide resilience. A well run company develops staff that will be its future skilled workforce. If a well run company has a bumper year, it will either invest or retain its windfall allowing either growth or resilience. The share price of a well run company should have a boring increase as it grows organically.
If you take a well run company (for example, Boeing "classic") you can squeeze money out of it for many years before things start going wrong. You can lengthen your supply chains, remove margins of error and use increased operating profit to buy back your own shares. But in the process you are hollowing the company out, year after year, and making it weaker. Replicate this across the market and you have today's late-stage capitalism: execs are incentivised on this quarter's profit, or share price, so that's how they manage the company.
And that, my friends, is the story of the 21st century in "the west". If you want long term corporate thinking, you have to look east.
All true but massively exacerbated by the fact that many companies are owned by financial institutions in faraway countries who have nothing invested except money and they are in it for only as long as they can take money out. The companies they own are, to them, just a set of numbers on balance sheets and P&L accounts and they're happy to dump on them the debt they use to buy them so they don't pay tax, and then pay dividends til the money runs out. After that they don't care what happens.
This is a board decision, as is the decision to do quarterly reporting and forecasts to “the markets”
Remember today’s typical shareholder is only holding on to shares for circa 6 months. To think long-term you need to engage with the long-term share holders which are generally pension funds et al. It is interesting to look at what Unilever has achieved since it effectively stuck two fingers up to “the markets” with their hype short termism.
Even the best run companies are entitled to expect well-run governments that don't want to move ast and break things. They are entitled to expect that their currency, interest rates and taxation wil be pretty close next quarter to this quarter and, more importantly,pretty predictable next year. If that's not the case they'll be very reluctant to invest at home because they might have to write off that investment if there's a big change enforced entirely by an erratic government policy.
A well run company is concerned with the long term, and with risk management
If the stock of that company is traded on say the DJIA, then that statement Is wrong.
Every 90days that company has to publish its results. If the profits are not UP and probably exceeding the market expectations then the stock will drop and the CEO/CFO/COO may well be shown the door.
Sod the long term. Wall St makes everything short term unless you are so big that a few $T on R&D is a rounding error in the P&L.
Ironically, your last line is 100% right. There are thousands of well run companies in the USA who are now at risk of going TITSUP thanks to Trump. His 'We will all be so rich' is a lie, like everything else that comes out of his tiny gob.
"If a well run company has a bumper year, it will either invest or retain its windfall allowing either growth or resilience. "
And yet, people will bash them for stock buybacks even though it can be a good thing for investors as their stock becomes more concentrated. If that's so bad, why not do the opposite and issue more shares and dilute the value? Every share has a management cost. Just being publicly traded incurs millions in costs to a company annually to stay in compliance with reporting/disclosure requirements.
"This is precisely why boards of corporations only having a responsibility to shareholders is wrong."
For a publicly traded company, this is a good regulation. There's no qualification for investors to buy publicly traded stocks so they can be thick as a brick and be less likely to get swindled. Privately held companies have much more leeway to do what they want and run the company in pursuit of some agenda that isn't money. Investors need to show they have some business acumen to be allowed to put their money in (details omitted).
The problem comes about when the companies focus on only a certain section of shareholders, the c-level executives.
A good way to spot a company that is looking at long-term value is how stable the stock price is and the strength of the dividend they pay. It's not the total picture, but it's a good start.
"If the boards of corporations had an additional fiduciary duty of care to consider the impacts of their decisions on their employees, their customers, the communities in which they operate, the environment, and the long-term value of the business, the world would be a much better place."
In the UK they sort of do, although you wouldn't believe it and I don't think any directors have been brought to book for treating themselves and the shareholders much better than everyone else.
Companies Act 2006 Section 172: Duty to promote the success of the company
(1)A director of a company must act in the way he considers, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole, and in doing so have regard (amongst other matters) to—
(a)the likely consequences of any decision in the long term,
(b)the interests of the company's employees,
(c)the need to foster the company's business relationships with suppliers, customers and others,
(d)the impact of the company's operations on the community and the environment,
(e)the desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct, and
(f)the need to act fairly as between members of the company.
(2)Where or to the extent that the purposes of the company consist of or include purposes other than the benefit of its members, subsection (1) has effect as if the reference to promoting the success of the company for the benefit of its members were to achieving those purposes.
(3)The duty imposed by this section has effect subject to any enactment or rule of law requiring directors, in certain circumstances, to consider or act in the interests of creditors of the company.
There is nothing wrong with globalised supply chains. It's how the economy works. You make stuff where it is cheaper so more people can enjoy a good quality of life, not just the rich.
At any given moment of the development cycle, each country will be at a different position. The tough bit is for governments to manage transitions, such as switching from manufacturing to services and innovation. Most governments do it badly because they are incompetent and corrupt. So there are strikes and discontent.
What breaks these natural economic cycles, is if you introduce some nationalist half wit like Trump that wants to turn back time to a previous point in their country's development cycle. It doesn't work. Anywhere. You have to accept the point you are at in your development cycle, help out those who aren't doing well, and get on with running the country.
Trump is an ignorant idiot, attempting the impossible and bullshitting about 'national security'. We have the military for national security. America has politicised everything with the culture wars and now militarised trade with tariffs. This drives your country off a cliff. Prices will rocket. Stuff will become unavailable. To cover up their failure the government will pick a victim, demonise them and start a war.
How about a basic intelligence test for future presidential candidates.
"Our own companies put us in this situation threatening national security to save a few bucks."
No, they made America richer by bringing down costs. The policy you advocate is North Korea's autarky. And North Korea is a permanent showcase what an unmitigated disaster autarky is with its perenial famines.
Economics since Adam Smith and David Ricardo have shown that all wealth originates in trade.
The reason the tariffs are massively backfiring is that home shoring is extremely inefficient and America doesn't even have the people to do it. Nor has it currently the know-how and skilled workforce to do so.
Some 30M of the 110M people employed in Chinese manufacturing are working to produce the stuff Americans buy.
Where does MAGA think they can find 30 million manufacturing workers to replace them when they finally have build the American factories to house them?
But I understand why so many Americans hate international trade: They cannot accept the fact that trade benefits both partners. Somehow, it feels like stealing when the people you buy from also make a profit.*
As for the trade imbalance, as usual, XKCD explains that perfectly.**
* The same feeling American businesses have when they have to pay employees a wage above subsistence minimum.
** With explanation for your benefit.
"When you said ‘made America wealthy’ that’s pretty subjective (LOL and objective)."
Nope, that is GPD, a very solid number.
How this is distributed among the population is a purely US internal matter where the exporting countries have no influence on whatsoever. And given how the US population has consistently voted for those politicians who advocated the most unequal distribution of the growth, the population was totally fine with it.
Don't forget that America only appears wealthy because the dollar is in demand elsewhere.
If that stops, and the dollar tanks, America will become correspondingly less wealthy. That might happen if, for example, a deranged and unintelligent criminal was elected president and did his best to withdraw the US from international trade, thus reducing the utility of and external demand for the dollar.
If that happened the US would become a low cost manufacturing base able to sell iPhones to China. Of course the standard of living would fall, property prices would tank, houses would be repossessed and so on. Anyone with transferable skills would leave. Anyone without them might become illegal emigrants to Canada and Mexico.
"If that happened the US would become a low cost manufacturing base able to sell iPhones to China."
The employees would unionize and the union would require the company to get rid of all the robots and hire more people to do the work. I expect a totally hand-built iThingy would be complete crap and the yields would be so low the cost would be too high.
>” No, they made America richer by bringing down costs.”
Lowering costs on its own does not make a nation richer.
As a country it doesn’t matter if a company is efficient etc if it isn’t contributing to the domestic economy to support education, healthcare, welfare etc. Get the balance right and the nation gets richer and people individually become richer, which is effectively what was happening in the 1950s and 1960s America.
The other problem the US has is the prevalence of monopolies and cartels across large parts of the economy.
As Adam Smith warned, government regulation is needed because whenever businessmen meet together they will conspire to avoid competing with each other.
Over this weekend, we saw the UK Government rush through legislation to try to save the two blast furnaces at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, when it became apparent the Chinese owners were going to shut them down.
There is a very large contingent of Chinese workers at the plant, who were bought in from China.
The same practice is seen with the Belt and Road initiative. Labour being flown in from China at the expense of the local labour force.
China owns you
I went to a lecture a few months ago about how a lot of the takeaways that we have come to know, love and see as part of British Culture are disappearing. Mainly because the kids who would normally take them over are now seeing that kind of work as "shit, really" and that there are better dreams to pursue than a number 59 with prawn crackers and fried rice, please. Oh, and some chips in curry sauce for the missus.
>a lot of the takeaways that we have come to know, love and see as part of British Culture are disappearing
No problem, as we welcome the next load of refugees we get a new set of delicious foreign cuisine.
We got Jewish Fried fish, then Italian, then Indian/Bangledeshi, then Chinese, now we will get a new round of people fleeing oppression with only their culinary heritage and appetite for hardwork.
The only drawback is that the next lot are likely to be American.
"Over this weekend, we saw the UK Government rush through legislation to try to save the two blast furnaces at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe, when it became apparent the Chinese owners were going to shut them down."
The Chinese owners were going to shut them down not for strategic or political reasons, but because it's losing money. And that's because the UK government has made Britain a high labour cost, high energy cost country with massively restrictive planning and environmental conditions. You can say that's a good thing or not, but fundamentally it's part of longer term UK government policy that has enthusiastically embraced offshoring, and cheerily waved goodbye to the majority of steel making and manufacturing already. Never mind Scunthorpe, they've already allowed Port Talbot to close, and long before that Consett, Teeside, Round Oak, Bilston, Workington, Corby, Redcar, etc etc.
Of course, the British government allowed this to happen in the name of cheaper steel from overseas. Having killed off the British steel industry, they're now going to address that cheapness issue, by introducing the "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism" a Tory policy which Labour remain committed to, and as of 2027 will impose carbon taxes on imported steel. So there you have the ultimate Con-Lab success, no jobs, and expensive products.
Feel better for the rant ?
If you had been following the steel industry you would know steel demand in the EU (pre-Brexit) was such that it was hardly enough to keep 2 steelworks (with blast furnaces) working. Being inside the EU at the time, meant one of those steelworks was in the UK…
As for high cost, well compared to China, everywhere is going to be high cost; including your IT industry salary ie. You are part of the problem and if the UK were to take the measures you are suggesting expect your salary and “wealth” to take a massive fall.
CBAM isn't a Tory policy, it is an EU regulation (2023/956) which came into effect on 1st October 2023. Currently the regulation is in the transition period until 31st December 2025 during which default values for calculations are to be used. After 1st January 2026 more precise figures are supposed to be calculated, but based on the rules so far, you'd need a degree in advanced maths just to understand how to calculate the figures. I have been producing CBAM declarations for German and Dutch customs (the only ones that seem to care) since November 2023.
The thing about CBAM is it's typical useless bureaucracy. The carbon 'created' to produce the steel, aluminium, cement and fertiliser products is only required to be reported against certain HS codes. So I recently had a shipment to Netherlands where we had to declare the 10.57kg of carbon produced to manufacture the 4.75kg of steel nuts, bolts, washers & screws in the shipment (all items in chapter 73 of the HS Codes) but nothing relating to the 25kg of brake discs which come in chapter 87 of the HS Codes. Chapter 73 is subject to CBAM, chapter 87 isn't.
Krasnov is destroying US economy under guise of "trying to help". He doesn't understand how tariffs work and also doesn't recognise that "stick" approach is not going to bring any manufacturing back. If the US was naturally more competitive than China to set up a factory, then that would have some legs.
Given that people still trying to justify and rationalise what Krasnov is doing, rather than seeing him as bad faith actor, a plant, means his Russian handlers are doing great job at dismantling the US, without sending a single soldier to American soil.
"Our own companies put us in this situation threatening national security to save a few bucks."
Companies are not responsible for national security. It's the government's domain and if they set it up so it's easy for companies to make more money by moving production out of the country while the politicians accept payments from foreign sources, this is what happens.
Publicly traded companies have a legal obligation to return the most value to their shareholders. If they don't take advantage of legal tax strategies and other ways of lowering costs, they might be subject to lawsuits and fines.
I had a manufacturing company that made some products that were purchased by government agencies. I still had to compete with Chinese imports with regards to price even though I was building much higher quality items that returned more value (lasted much longer). Why tariffs when it could have been a mandate that government purchases had to be made from domestic manufacturers? Even if the prices are higher, a fair bit of that money comes back in taxes, keeps people employed and off the dole and the circulation of the money magnifies the taxes collected. I'm not sure that the distinction between private and government business strategy is taught in college.
Doesn't threaten US national security. Nor does making shirts in Vietnam or TVs in South Korea.
There are some sectors where the US not having that capability is a real problem, but republicans have long been hands off on business and democrats mostly went along with that starting with Clinton, so there was no one to pass laws exporting industries like ship building and steel production, or closing down rare earths mines because China was willing to mine it and sell to us for less money.
"Trump is clearly making this shit up as he plays through"
Not really. He has been against trade and in favor of tariffs as a tax income at least since the 1980s. Maybe he once learned to love the tariff policies of Calvin Coolidge et al. (an important factor in the 1930s great depression and WWII).
He seems to be a narcissist and believes all interactions are zero sum. Any benefit, or attention, received by someone else is not received by him. That is stealing what is rightfully his. Tariffs are a natural way to "redress" this "crime".
It is just that he cannot fathom the disastrous outcomes these tariffs have. So he is constantly playing whack-a-mole with the economic horrors that surface because of the tariffs.
But in good psychopath style, he never learns and keeps imposing new, or old, tariffs when the previous emergency is gone. And playing whack-a-mole again.
I expect he will not stop until Congres somehow stops him. Or the US economy collapses and Americans are unable to import stuff anyway.
Congress could stop him - today. He's done so many unlawful things and overridden Congress so many times that both he and Vance could both be impeached, convicted and removed in a day.
The Republicans don't want to, despite the fact he's taken all their other powers away from them.
Why is that? Why are they happy to let him take all their power - with several of them even writing bills to actively hand the President more of Congress' constitutional powers?
Congress could impeach any president at any time, utterly regardless of what they have or haven't done. It's Congress's decision, no-one else's. There are a number of reasons why they don't do it, but many of them eventually boil down to "no matter how low the president's approval goes, it'll never be worse than Congress's". Which means they'd probably lose everything if they tried it.
As to why they want to give him more power - many of them have long since worked out that power is a burden. If you have power, you have to make decisions, and that means making enemies. Many of them are quite happy for the executive to do that for them. We see the same dynamic in Europe with powers handed to the Commission and Council, but never to the European Parliament.
Tax at 145%
But not for electronics
but they were not exempt
You know the refrain of the dance Hokey Cokey:
You put your left leg inYou put your left leg out
In out, in out, shake it all about
What is the primary thing that business leaders always say that they want? stability!
<......"What is the primary thing that business leaders always say that they want? stability!".....>
Agreed; and this is why I think a lot of people are struggling to understand what keeps going on.
Virtually everything that Trump and his crew have done in the last three and a half months has been geared to creating as much instability as possible - destabilise the world economy, destabilise relations between the USA and its neighbours/allies, destabilise relations between other nations, destabilise regions of the world where there are/have been political or military conflicts.....
This is their game - possibly because of misguided incompetence, possibly a deliberate attempt at 'divide and rule', or possibly something more sinister.....
"This is their game - possibly because of misguided incompetence, possibly a deliberate attempt at 'divide and rule', or possibly something more sinister....."
The bigger the chaos the easier it is to run with the money.
I also understand they are working hard and determinedly to prevent any honest and fair elections in the future.*
But there is also epic incompetence. Which might prevent them from reaching any goal at all.
*Project 2025
"The bigger the chaos the easier it is to run with the money."
I know someone who works for a company producing software for trading floors. He voted in favour of Brexit. When I asked him why, he said that the EU and the Euro made currencies too stable, that banks and traders needed volatility to make money. His thoughts were that if banks and traders were able to make more money from a more volatile market, they would buy more software from his employer and he'd make more money too.
Lots of top Republicans appear to be making lots of money from the instability in the markets due to Trump's antics. He's not intereseted in the long term stability for companies, he's interested in the quick gains he and his family and friends can make from playing the market. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an executive order soon making insider trading legal.
" I wouldn't be surprised if there was an executive order soon making insider trading legal."
The clip where Trump brags about 2 "friends" making fortunes in the stock market from knowing about his sudden tariff "pause" made the evening news over here.
The comment from a stock market specialist was that this unequal playing field means investors are starting to move away from US markets.
Just more reasons to get investments out of the US., besides a falling dollar, ludicrous tariffs, and chaotic financial policies aimed at forcing a recession, to name a few.
"Make Louisiana French again !"
Oh lovely. That would mean there would be announcements on train/planes/busses in English and French just like in Canada. Signs would be written in both languages. Of course, it wouldn't be a "true French" and arguments would rage over what's proper.
There's no way companies were ever going to be bringing manufacturing back to the US to any significant extent.
The more existential problem is that the US supports its vast Federal deficit on the back of artificially-low borrowing rates that result from its status as a "safe haven". This farrago is calling into question that status while simultaneously the US is poking the country that holds a significant part of that debt - China - with a sharp stick. In the end, it's the bond markets, not the stock markets, that hold the upper hand and the bond markets have been selling US debt, not buying it. The latest US budget - which enshrines the cuts in many spending programmes in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthy - proved difficult to get past Republican lawmakers because it was insufficiently austere for a number of them. If US borrowing costs go up significantly while taxes are being cut, there'll be nothing left of federal spending because the hardliners won't tolerate a reversal of those tax cuts. Some people will cheer that, but not the people who were supposed to be the beneficiaries on the mythical manufacturing renaissance who will find their families' lifeline payments disappearing.
You simply can’t add USD$4tn by raising the debt ceiling, whilst legislating for USD$4.7tn of tax cuts and promising to eliminate the debt.
If anything tax needs some modest rises to address the debt and the looming social security time bomb coming real soon - mid-2030’s. Hey how about raising the pension/401K tax free contribution threshold over USD$175K… tbh it’s backwards and the more you stuff into a workplace originated pension the amount over a salary threshold should be greater - not less - the tax deduction should be.
It’s all madness. Liz Truss grade madness.
"whilst legislating for USD$4.7tn of tax cuts"
Tariffs are a tax and they were supposed to increase government income. The idea was that the taxpayers wouldn't realize they were taxed more.
Somehow the idiocrats in charge convinced themselves that the foreign companies would pay the tariffs. They even installed a Foreign Revenue Service.
As everyone who ever looked into an economics textbook knew would happen, the Americans pay almost the full tariffs.
So, the full brunt of the tariffs is a sale tax to be paid by the consumers. But, it is the lower income brackets that pay most of it.
I would love for China to impose export duty of (say) 145% on phones and computers bound for the US.
Yea, it would hurt, but I bet it wouldn’t hurt for more than a few days until the Orange Fuckwit changes his mind and drops all tariffs
….but China won’t do this, so…. Boooooo
The one that's laughing is President Xi because China has a huge home market, exports to the rest of the world as well as the USA and has a whole load of very well trained people who can make anything they could buy from the USA if not prevented by their government's "restrictions" on copyright & design theft.
I suspect President Putin is having a chortle or two also as he watches the POTUS demonstrate how much of an imbecile he is; the rest of us are just watching in disbelief...
Xi's too bright to do that, particularly since Trump is fucking it all up by himself at the moment. The Chinese will strengthen existing trade and forge new markets until they're in a position where they could care less about the US at which point they'll be ready to strike the US economically whenver they choose. I know some are saying that in 4 years Trump will be gone and we just have to wait him out, but they the people voted him in on these policies and there are people in the wings who are just as mad and will have learned a lot from what Trump is getting away with.
"Within 4 years China will overtake the US and become the world’s number one economy. It is going to be interesting to see the effect this will have on Trump and the MAGA crowd…"
The playbook says that when this happens you blame it on someone else and start warmongering.
China have been long term planning their market diversification for years. See for example the "belt and road" initiative and their very large investments into African nations, The only real problem they have is Trumps tariffs are upsetting the pace of their plans a bit. The US a big trade partner, but China is not hugely worried because a lot of chat China exports to the US is stuff the US can't get from anywhere else at anything less than 5-10 years notice. Chinas biggest single export to the US is iShiney, and even if the US could magically shift all production to India, the parts to make the iShiney still most come from China.
"What could possibly happen to drive the likes of Japan and S. Korea into close financial and ultimately political and military cooperation with China ?"
The point is they don't need them when they are building their own, separate trading empire. China plans for the long term.
There is no strategy when you change your mind from one day to the next following how the wind blows.
That is how Trump has always managed things : loudly claiming success, then blaming others and weaseling out of the way when the house comes falling down.
It's just that now, it's the White House, and the US economy, that is going to fall down.
And with three and a half more years of this bullshit, it's practically guaranteed that the US economy is not going to stop it's slide down the shithole that the orange buffoon is gleefully digging.
(they are not "a permanent exemption" and will again be taxed under "sectoral tariffs" to be announced in "a month or two.")
So Trump thinks in a month or two that businesses are going to be able to build, equip and staff US based factories to not avoid having to pay these tariffs again soon?
Even if it was a year or two he planned to bring the tariffs back it would be a tough call to get it done in that time frame.
Business want stability and aren't going to invest in US manufacturing based on some random post from his Twitter knock off, no doubt either the tariffs won't come back in a month or two and just get quietly not mentioned or they will get re-introduced and then prices of electronics will shoot up and so they will end up getting paused again because the markets will panic.
Honestly the US could build factories in a few years, maybe.
Except who would staff them, does the US have the, literally, tens of thousands of people with the skills to run and organise said factories, to work out the supply chains, to negotiate the contracts, source the raw materials, will the suppliers of said materials want to work with you?
Yes, OK it probably could be done but it’ll take a couple of decades or so.
There wont be any "tens of thousands" employed in said factories, even if you could build them in time or even manage to import the machinery to put in them.
The time of mass employment in manufacturing is OVER . it is dead and it is gone. (and good riddance)
From now on its robotic machines galore.. I've got 1 job running at the moment, previously it would be 2 setters and 3 operators, the setters set the 3 machines and the operators do the work.
Now I use 1 machine tool and it does the job complete from a 3 meter long bar. now our job is occasionally check the parts, and check the bar magazine is'nt getting empty 1 person. (plus they get other machines/programming work to do as well.. or sneak off for a smoke ) but 1 operator looks after 4 cells, his job.... change the trays of parts, and check some of parts coming out. you're looking at 10 plus peoples jobs in the good old days now we do it with 1.
US unemployment is currently around 2% - there's no capacity for these magical workers to appear from nowhere even if there were the jobs for them to do by onshoring manufacturing again. So a lot of the "plan" appears to be to take jobs away from Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese etc human workers and give them to US machines for a slightly higher cost per part.
The tariff will only apply to what's imported from China, not any huge mark-up someone like Apple may add. If it's something like -
$500 phone from China + $1000 mark-up by brand owner = $1500 purchase price for the consumer
If 145% tariffs are applied -
$500 phone from China + $735 for Trump + $1000 mark-up by brand owner = $2225 purchase price for the consumer
So not quite as high as a back of a napkin 'RRP times 2.45' calculation would have it. Not for those who have high mark-up.
For small businesses, say someone who imports $20 shoes from China, makes $10 profit per sale, their $30 shoes would need to be sold at $59 to raise the same profit. And there's no opportunity to absorb the full tariff tax.
It's always the small guys who suffer most. And the poorest, who would see shoe prices increase 93%, while an iPhone would only increases 48% using the above figures.
They were obviously in favour of his tax cut policy, as it would make themselves better off. However by backing him, they were also supporting his tariff policy which is proving highly detrimental to the companies they run. So, seeing as the decision they made has badly harmed those companies, they should all be fired for that, as well as prioritising their own personal interest over that of their shareholders.
>they were also supporting his tariff policy which is proving highly detrimental to the companies they run.
No it isn't
Facebook, Google and Microsoft don't care about tariffs - they sell services, there is no duty on clicks.
Apple know they will get an exemption, either for free or for a small donation to the spray-tan fund.. Nobody wants to go on Fox business and tell people that their policies mean an iPhone costs $3000
Nvidia will get an exemption because otherwise all the AI data centers will be built abroad and Silicon Valley will start to look like a ditch
Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all also sell hardware.
Trump thinks his External Revenue Service idea will give him free money, if it does finally get off the ground all it means is the supplier will add the cost onto the wholesale or retail price and inflation in the US will still rise just as much as it does when the importer pays now.
Those who have a clue are the ones with eyes-popping out and jaws dropped in shock, wondering why -
Those who don't have a clue are proclaiming "winning", cheering for Trump, who, along with him, say it's all going to plan and have no understanding of the damage they are doing to America.
There are many who believe their countries are too heavily reliant upon America and a readjustment is necessary. I am not sure what they are feeling because they never believed that would ever come about. But here's Trump forcing everyone into that.
I feel mostly bemused by Trump's antics, am taking a HHGTTG approach of "Don't Panic", am holding on to "let's see what the outcome is". It's going to be painful but I am sure we will survive, and the world will be better for it.
Which is ironically what Trump said. Maybe he is a very stable genius, the smartest man in the room!
There are many cliches about corrupt politicians
Many of them are American.
So it's kind of amazing that the USA decided to elect someone who (literally) ticked every single one on the list.*
*Although by a c**thairs width with what 4(5?) seats vacant (compare that to Starmers 85 seat majority). He cancelled his choice for UN Ambassador to keep them in the House. IOW they are running scared. Democrats (IE all who believe in free and fair elections and accepting if you lost, you leave, unlike the FOCF) should take note and take heart.
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