Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax' US president Donald Trump has threatened a tariff that would apply only to Apple, and appears to have referred to the European Union’s treatment of American tech companies as part of a threat to slap the bloc with higher tariffs. Trump targeted Apple with a Friday post to his social network Truth Social. “I have long ago …
Yeah, but you can bet any "conscientious objection" from anyone is likely to result in a politically motivated audit, even if it's primary purpose is just to be a pain in the arse.
Isn't life just wonderful south of the border under the Pumpkin Fuhrer and has raging dementia? You poor fools...
Any corporate beancounter will be able to wangle this
https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Content/Qualify-Conventions-and-Seminars-for-Tax-Deductions.aspx
Plus they just woodchipped the 30,000 extra tax collectors Biden had employed to increase oversight and the tax take from people and Corporations who ‘made an error’ on their tax.
If you follow Legal Eagle, he posted a video with an addendum on the 23rd, stating that Scotus has overturned it's 1935 Humphrey's Executor decision, meaning Trump can fire anyone, even people protected by congress laws that don't work for him!
Yeah, this is quite grave, very recent, and very partisan. It gives way too much power to the President alone, like in a feudal monarchy, Putin's Russia, and backwards failed states authoritarian bananarama pseudo-"republics" at large.
It’s a strange allowance, whilst the challenge continues.
Common sense would have been to reinstate/leave the 2 people in place whilst it played out:… as has happened in most of the Federal stays granted.
It was a very anal technicality on the greater least impact to leave as is v’s least impact if overturned. If overturned it’s unlikely they would ever get their jobs back and only enhanced compensation (whereas in communist UK Unfair Dismissal mandates reinstatement and compensation by comparison).
Bitter satire .. both of the people (unfairly) fired were in Government oversight/protection roles at CFPB and MPB. Merit Protection Board exists to protect federal workers from unfair treatment).
Post this the MPB MPB join the now Anti Environment EPA under new leadership following ‘You Know Who’s’ Mad agendas.
"The law is irrelevant if nobody enforces it."
The law is irrelevant since the Supremes essentially made him above the law, he's immune to decisions and actions taken in the context of being the President (and you know he's going to milk every drop of that).
So watcha gonna do? Sue "the government"? Thanks to DOGE that's in disarray too.
It’s all by design. Read this (you may have to register).
You know who denying knowledge of Project 2025.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/05/russell-vought-trump-doge/682821/
By comparison …. Although here are plenty of dumb people in the UK - see recent by and council elections - …. the useless fuck Boris Johnson would not ever win a hypothetical general election EVER again:
We're already well beyond the bounds of legality. US law makes it clear that Congress is responsible for all trade negotiations. In its turn, Congress gave presidents the power to set policy during poorly defined situations of "national emergency", which is the excuse Trump is using to justify the current shitshow. However, there are already several lawsuits in the works that challenge the legality of at least some of these decisions.
Politically, it could be smart for Trump to lose some of the cases: he could walk away and say he'd like to do more but his hands are tied. But he takes such decisions personally and would waste more energy and government resources going after both plaintiffs and the courts.
Well he doesn't want the FBI going after fraud and racketeering as thats the sort of crimes that Trump MAGA buddies are into and no point in wasting resources going after those criminals when Trump will only end up pardoning them anyway.
Its unbelievable how corrupt the Trump administration has become in just a short period of time with still almost 4 years left. With the supreme court basically saying he can't be prosecuted for anything done while in power and Republicans holding both houses and most of them too scared to speak up against Trump there is little that can be done to stop him until maybe the mid term elections, assuming the democrats manage to win, and Trump doesn't cry that election fraud again.
Right for the wrong reason. The purpose in losing a court case is to identify which judges and lawyers should be deported. So far, the threat of revoking security clearance has convinced most law firms to surrender.
That policy is not working out so well for 'Paul Weiss'. FOUR Partners are leaving to start their own firm. They WILL take clients with them. OTher top lawyers will soon follow as they will not want to be tarred with the 'suck Trump''s thing' badge for long.
Other lawyers have fought back and one just received a summary judgement nullifying the EO that Trump signed to go after them. That is not a stay but a decision by the court that stops Trump from trying to penalise that firm.
Trump (and Muck and Gabbard) are mental toddlers who can't stand people not bending over and taking it when they demand it.
Harvard is fighting back. If they lose, one estimate I read is that at least 60% of all Universities in the USA will close before the end of the year. The exodus of talent will become a Tsunami.
Trump's boss (Putin) will be cheering on every move by the toddler.
Outstanding. I did wonder why some law firms caved. Losing security clearance means the law firm cannot take federal government work, but that is hardly a growth industry these days. The obvious replacement is litigation against the Trump administration. I cannot see a shortage of business in that market.
The threat wasn't just against the law firms. The threat was against any firm that hired lawyers on Trumps boycott list. An example would be Microsoft. If Microsoft continued to be represented by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, then Microsoft would have been cut off from all federal contracts to supply MS products. The threat was that law firms would not be able to find work of any kind at any company performing work for the federal government. And that is a LOT of firms, from Coca Cola that supplies federal canteens, to BIC who supply pens. As it turns out, Microsoft were represented by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, right up until the law firm capitulated to Trump, then Microsoft terminated their deal with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and are now being represented by Jenner & Block, who were also on the boycott list, but are fighting back. It would seem the large firms have taken the view that a law firm that will not defend itself, cannot be relied upon to defend their client.
Whether Trumps government carries out it's threat to cancel any federal contract with anyone being represented by the firms on it's boycott list remains to be seen. The courts so far have found in favour of the law firms, but felon Trump is above the law, and has SCOTUS blessing his every whim, so even the wins gained so far, could tomorrow be thrown out.
So much for making America Great Again when the only ones left are MAGA Hat wearing 'Good Ole Boys' who never got their GED.
The USA is rapidly becoming a busted flush.
The Dollar will collapse and MAGA will love it. The world will plunge into a depression that may well last for a decade.
Saul Goodman.
I'm not sure that many lawyers will worry too much about being associated with Trump, but the government simply offers too few business opportunities, and, until Dummy goes after tort law, there's simply too much money to be made out of such cases. Civil liberties work is often just a stepping stone to juicy class action suits.
That would credit Trump with far too much strategic thinking. After he was handed the "get out of jail free card" by the supreme court, he's been encouraged to see quite how extensive executive authority is. The Project 2025 goons are, of course, cock-a-hoop over all the chaos he's causing because they want to break the "checks and balances" system. But they're happy to see the powers of states, the courts, etc. limited and replace the judges via the usual means, whilst they rig things like higher education in general and law schools in particular, and selection processes so that there'll be more "sheriffs" than judges.
The irony is that his EOs are in principle very, very illegal. All of them.
But, as the legal system has effectively been destroyed (one of the key reasons any company should think twice before engaging with anything with even the slimmest likns to the US) he gets away with it.
The real emergency is that the US now has a constitutional crisis, whether it realises it yet or not.
Oh, the sane still left standing realize it, but there is literally no one who can/will stop it. Marvel and DC heroes don't exist in this universe. Unless there is someone who answers the (mis)quote, "will no one relieve us of that troublesome king?"
"The real emergency is that the US now has a constitutional crisis, whether it realises it yet or not."
It's more of a Congressional crisis as they are so busy bickering amongst themselves that they aren't worrying about the egregious trespass into their prerogatives.
"The only emergency is the rampaging toddler in the oval office - with no "adults in the room" !"
Well, two until recently since for some reason as Elon was bringing one of his kids ( 0-1 or whatever it's name is). Even billionaires are having difficulties paying for childcare in DC.
As others point out, Glorious Leader considers himself above the law. Even if he cannot tax just Apple, the lickspittle USG can break the company up, as it is planning with Google.
In his wildest dreams, Putin couldn't have done this much damage to what is now the Unmitigated Shitshow of America. Vladimir must be at least a bit jealous.
There's an argument to be made that shipping too much manufacturing overseas is a national security risk in case we ever had to go back to a wartime production economy, though whether a process that has been happening for decades (including when he was president last time) constitutes a "national emergency" that allows him to exercise authority under laws that let him set tariffs to address national emergencies is something working its way through the courts now.
But there is no possible legal argument that a single company - especially a company that has no ties whatsoever to the defense industry and sells consumer products - can be tariffed under "emergency" powers. California's governor has already suggested he would sue Trump, and obviously Apple would join in. They would get an immediate injunction while it went through the courts, and it would eventually be overturned. If it got the Supreme Court maybe his two pet justices who clearly want to see him become a dictator would go along with it, but the other seven wouldn't need very long to decide against him.
@veti
"Can he just apply a tax to a specific company like that?"
It does sound like too much of an overreach to be legal. But then its the people who get rules. regulations and put on a watch list for anything, not the leadership.
I was recently listening to Rand Paul about Tulsi Gabbard being put on a watch list because of something she said. Amusingly she said it while in a 'protected' position but put on the watch list when she left that role.
I am not an Apple user but hopefully this isnt legal.
A month ago he wanted to charge tariffs on products made by Mattel. If someone explained to the leader of the free world how tariffs work so he didn't stick his foot in it again he's forgotten as now he wants to charge them on products made by Apple.
Or perhaps the first stealth iPhone. The Orange Fuckwit believes stealth planes are invisible. And not just to radar. So why not give the manbaby a stealth iPhone? That could be the start of a beautiful big new chapter in Trump's graft: a stealth Airforce One, stealth cybertrucks, stealth cryptocurrency, stealth constitution, etc, etc.
Yeah he's getting bribed in jets now, he could ask that it be filled floor to ceiling with iPhones when it was delivered to him and the Qataris would do it, because they know he will give them much more than that in things that benefit them even if they hurt the US (because despite what the drooling red hat wearing morons think, Trump doesn't care about them, or the US, at all, only about himself)
If Apple would transfer (significant) volume to be manufactured in the U.S. of A, would it make it a cheaper product for the American Citizen?
Would an imported iPhone / iPad with 25% Donald Tariff be more expensive? I cannot tell.
And how long does it take/how much does it cost to implement local manufacturing and supporting logistics?
All I can see is that the label "made in the U.S. of A." does not necessarily make it a cheaper or better product.
Mr. President is a real estate entrepeneur witth no/limited experience in manufacturing or supply chain management. For once, I believe mr. Cook is right and buying time is the best way out for now. In less then 4 years time there is another Mr(s) President, with different views and dito politics.
I would be very much certain that the cost of an iphone produced in either China or India shipped to the US and subjected to a 100% tariff, would STILL be cheaper than one produced in the US. That's assuming that a US manufacturing facility materialised out of nowhere complete with staff trained to produce the iphones, and all without costing Apple a cent.
In truth Apple would first need to build a factory, and second they would need to train sufficient staff to actually do the manufacturing. So the costs would be massively higher.
If Apple have to pay additional tariffs on their products, either they will take a hit on their already massive profits for each iphone sold, or more likely just raise the prices to include the tariffs, and accept a reduction in sales. They would probably look at that as returning to their more exclusive image (and advertise it as such!). Waiting out the Orange ones nonsense certainly makes more financial sense than actually trying to rush into producing anything in America. The fact Trump seems to have the memory of a gold fish and changes his mind every time he changes his underwear, would make anyone doing long term planning simply decide to wait him out...
"Nice Rolex! Oooohh, I see you own an iPhone, too!"
That won't work for me as I've destroyed so many watches on my wrist over the years that the survivors are tucked away. I have my phone out so infrequently that people aren't going to see what brand it is. If I'm out with other people, I'll let calls go to VM if the ringtone isn't telling me it's mom.
Depends on what constitutes "manufacturing" would assembling the final product be sufficient? Foxconn won't make everything that goes into the phones. There are circuit boards, various assemblies (cameras for instance), the battery, screen etc. I don't think Apple could make a phone in the US if all of the parts had to be from domestic manufacturers. Even Boeing (questionable example, I know) sources parts overseas. Those manufacturers may have little interest in setting up shop in the US.
The devices are mainly assembled in China from components made all over the world. So, even assuming it was possible to build a suitable factory and find the necessarily skilled workers over a couple of years, this would hardly affect the higher prices due to imported components.
But America needs to import tariffed goods to build and equip factories and it doesn't have sufficient people to do this let alone the skilled ones to work in them.
"The devices are mainly assembled in China from components made all over the world."
Not really, it's the depth of the supply chains within China that make the biggest difference. For something such as a phone, there isn't that much labor in them so reducing that cost means very little. The parts themselves aren't that expensive anywhere in Apple sorts of quantities. It's being able to manage inventories and bring parts in within an hour or two if some sort of issue crops up. If you are manufacturing in the US and need some tiny little semiconductor in quantity, it would likely need to be flown in from Asia, go through customs, how ever long that will take, and then get to the factory. Even with a massive rush, that's a day and could be a production line not working during that time. For a popular and expensive product, that assembly line might be grossing $1mn/hour.
No.
Woz and Jobs were able to make the first Apple I's in their garage because all the parts they used to make it where made in the US. Most of them they didn't even have to order, they could go to local electronics shops and buy them off the shelf.
None of those low value discretes on the boards are made in the US and haven't been for a long time. Yes you can order them from US companies, but they buy them in bulk from China, Japan, South Korea etc. to sell here.
Woz wasn't a production genius. He was great at building the product in the first place. Figuring out the factories to mass-produce it most efficiently was never his strongest feature, and he didn't intend it to be. If he were there now, even if he had continued to be there all the way through, Apple would likely be very different than it is today but he almost certainly wouldn't have changed their production systems in the slightest. Yet, Apple does have a department full of people who do exactly that and they find it difficult to move production into the US on a whim.
And that's "made in the USA" meaning the parts are bought from all over the world and put together here. You can't buy a cell phone entirely made in the US (i.e. from parts all made in the US) because there are many parts which aren't made here by anyone even for their own internal consumption.
It is going to take a very large sum of dosh to make a factory capable of manufacturing iphones, itablets etc and the wages of the staff will be higher than the equivilent chinese chaps & chapesses. So the brake even point v paying the tariff is very high.
Why bother as the orange arsehole will be gone in 3 and a bit years and it takes longer than that to build a factory and commision operations in it.
"Whats that orange glow in the sky Mr Vance?"
"It's the sun shining out of the bosses arse Mr Musk".
It would take years to build a factory, hire/train people to work at it, etc. and they'd still be importing most of the parts used to make them meaning most of the components would still be subject to whatever tariffs there were.
To build the entire supply chain here, well that's where the high end estimates of $3500 to build an iPhone in the US come from. It isn't because of increased labor costs here, it is because there are over 1000 parts in an iPhone and less than 1% by number and at best in the low teens by value are current made in the US. Most of them aren't made in the US by anyone, so Apple would have to set up production facilities for everything from tiny resistors on the boards to OLED displays that no one makes here to be able to produce an entirely made in the USA iPhone.
All I can see is that the label "made in the U.S. of A." does not necessarily make it a cheaper or better product.
Unfortunately I discovered this when I bought a Moto G "proudly made in Ft. Worth, Texas" and I had immediately ship it back for replacement[1]. That was a shitshow as they mailed[2] an air freight bag for a ground shipment, which UPS couldn't accept.
When I called support, the very disgusted support person was angry they'd done this again for the Nth time.
Not long after that, Motorola closed the Ft. Worth facility.
[1] strike #1
[2] to the wrong address, as they transposed the house digits
"If Apple would transfer (significant) volume to be manufactured in the U.S. of A, would it make it a cheaper product for the American Citizen?
Would an imported iPhone / iPad with 25% Donald Tariff be more expensive? I cannot tell.
And how long does it take/how much does it cost to implement local manufacturing and supporting logistics?
All I can see is that the label "made in the U.S. of A." does not necessarily make it a cheaper or better product."
A US made iPhone would be much more expensive to the consumer. The cost to Apple to set up manufacturing while still having supply chains out of the country would add significant cost. Most of the parts are not made in the US and many of the processes used in the manufacture are banned.
Over time, it could be possible but it would take much more than only Apple bringing electronics manufacture back. What company is going to build a plant in the US to make tiny surface mount passive components? Chanced are that the raw materials they need aren't available in the US anymore and some of their processes are banned (chemical waste, etc).
It's just too easy to build small electronic devices in Asia and put 200,000 of them in a shipping container. In the last couple of decades countries such as China have made it easy for domestic companies to ramp up while the US has done the opposite. Corporations aren't loyal to a country. They use countries as a flag of convenience to maximize profits for the shareholders, AKA: senior executives.
... this could be an opportunity for Apple to invest in training American workers. I find it hard to believe that it's impossible for Americans to learn how to do electronics assembly.
Or is the real argument that American workers can't be paid as little as their foreign counterparts?
Of course American workers could be trained to produce iphones. Or any other Electrical item for that matter. BUT American workers could not survive on the wages paid in Asia. The cost of living is that much higher.
There are also rules on Health and Safety, Environmental regulations, and Employment rules, that mean that you couldnt just pick up one of those Asian factories and drop it in America, because half the process lines would be breaking US Law, and the whole work 84 hour weeks, sleep in a dorm at the factory and see your family once every 3 years or so, would tend to be frowned upon (although perhaps less so under the current administration...).
Apple could do all that anyway. They could make the Iphones in America, set up the factories compliant to local regulations, pay the workers are proper living wage. They could do all that. But then they would have to take a massive hit on their profits, and well we cant have that now can we? Those second yachts for the C-suite and Investors arent going to just pay for themselves, are they now?
There was an article in the NYT (I think) a few years ago which explained how the manufacturing costs of iToys would increase by $10-20/unit if they were made in the USA and US laws on employment, safety, environment, etc applied. Mind you, that article pre-dated Trumpian tariff fuckwittery.
That extra cost would have a marginal impact on Apple's bottom line, assuming the company didn't jack up prices for its "Made in the USA" tat. Which they'd surely do.
A business technologist may well have said that. But those numbers don't stand up to reasonable scrutiny. [Something the BBC and Radio 4 have largely abandoned these days. Sigh. ] If the unit price went up by $3000, that would mean roughly 30 hours of labour goes into making each one assuming labour-related costs (wages, pension, health insurance, etc) worked out around $100/hour. Which seems absurdly high - both for costs and number of hours,
The cost of components, machinery and the factory would be covered by the initial unit $1000 cost of production in China. Those overheads would be roughly the same regardless of the factory's location. If these did turn out to be higher in the US, that could be offset against not having to pay Foxcomm's wages. The same goes for training costs.
"The cost of components, machinery and the factory would be covered by the initial unit $1000 cost of production in China. Those overheads would be roughly the same regardless of the factory's location. "
Engage your critical faculties before typing things like this. I'll let you off your misunderstanding of what overheads are, but even then, it's widely recognised that Asian growth economies can build infrastructure for well less than half of the cost of similar facilities in any Western country.
And if all the components are still coming from Asia, where's the point shifting low value final assembly jobs to Trumpistan?
> If the unit price went up by $3000, that would mean roughly 30 hours of labour goes into making each one
30 hours is a lot to assemble a phone - probably 1-2 hours to put all the pieces together, maybe 30-45 minutes if you have an assembly line doing that.
But: what about the aluminum bits of the case? Casting, cutting, sanding? the plastic-wrap of the screen glass? all of the 1000 individual pieces inside? Loading the machinery, emptying it (carefully)? Their packaging and transportation? billing for components, paying bills, HR costs? circuit board etching, cutting, masking?
Some of this is of course automated, but you're talking about the whole supply chain, from mining of ore to EUV etching of processors. If the *whole* thing were done in the US... then 30 hours per phone? easily. Much, much more than that, probably.
TBH it's why I hate the destruction of good devices: a *lot* of actual human time went into making that, and if someone is just going to waste a device like a computer or smart phone... that's awfully calloused.
I too suspect that the claimed increases in costs are exagherated, at least in the long term. Much of the cost of iThings is in the cost of components, design and marketing. Production and assembly costs are on a long time declining trajectory due to ever increasing automation. Therefore for similar production complexity, labour cost goes down over time.
Certainly, transitioning to on shore production in a short term would be a hell of a chaotic and expensive process since much of the local production knowledge, talent pool and supporting ecostystem has gone due to years of full scale outsourcing of production.
Long term I suspect there is one problem hidden very well from sight: it would become much more difficult to keep being able to dodge any and all corporate income tax once most of the products (and much of its components) sold in the US are designed and manufactured in the US. Even if they were still able to dodge taxes, it would be far easier for government to close loopholes if they desired to do so. That is a business risk too in the minds of these CEOs.
Much of the cost is profit, profit, and more profit.
Then a bit for component cost.
Then a tiny payment to Foxconn to assemble it. That's the China part.
One year, Timmo got paid more than the entire Chinese workforce was paid to make iPhones.
Only a very small part of an iPhones cost would be subject to China tariffs, after Apples world-leading corrupt transfer pricing had been at it. They have been defrauding the world of taxes for decades now. Trumps gutted govt is hardly going to rein them in.
What do you mean by "everyone" then? Everyone in the wold? Because those parts suppliers sure aren't Apple workers. And they won't be even if Apple moved production to USA. So mining companies will also work for free, in your theoretical example? You too, perhaps? And land owners gives up rights to anyone for free?
In this scenario, I think the rule is that all labor worldwide becomes free. This gives us two problems:
1. The less important one. Labor being free doesn't mean everything else is. Miners of cobalt might work for free, but there's still only so much cobalt, and that might make it not free.
2. The important one. Why are we bothering to do anything with notional free labor when that's never going to happen? The question of how much more expensive it is to build an iPhone in the US versus China involves labor costs, yes, but it also involves tons more, such as regulation costs, importing component costs (or local manufacturing of said component that Apple doesn't make themselves costs), training costs, recruiting costs, physical land and plant costs, utility costs, and on and on. I don't know the values for any of these, and I don't even know how large each of those is in comparison to another one.
" I don't know the values for any of these, and I don't even know how large each of those is in comparison to another one."
Apple knows to the deprecated US penny what it costs. If they could add a slight premium to the price of an iPhone while also lobbying for tax abatements for re-shoring production just to gain some PR value, they might consider it and could even add some silly function such as fart sounds to the US made model to add perceived value. It's not a 10% increase, it would likely double the price while still importing the majority of the parts.
The more significant question is what would be the point?
The US economy is not going to benefit by people trading down to lower-value assembly jobs. And while there may be an argument for doing more high-tech component manufacturing in the US, it's actually very hard to do that without all the supporting lower-tech manufacturing processes being available on your doorstep and economically pointless if you then have to export those components again for final assembly before reimporting them.
It's the same as the issue with the US automotive industry - the price of making cars in the US is that a lot of the components are made in Canada and Mexico which are cheaper but sufficiently "nearby" for logistics. The alternative really isn't to do the whole job in the US - the alternative is to import entire cars because there's too little of the value chain left.
The point is populism. Shouting about the "good old days" and "when things were done properly" is an age old lament, we had loads of it here during Brexit and Reform are still at it. Trump never makes any effort to play to anyone who isn't already MAGA.
No part of his trade policy stacks up, a trade deficit isn't "cheating" or being taken advantage of, tariffs are generally accepted as only being of limited use to protect homegrown industries and pointless when applied unilaterally to products you don't make or crops you don't/can't grow but the only thing more certain than Trump changing his mind (again) is that he will spin any change of plan as a victory.
So who's going to do it?
I am guessing the MAGA morons have a vision that, once all the immigrants are gone, they'll round up the libtards, socialists, commies, the blacks and ethnics, all the non-MAGA, and turn them into slave labour who will be treated more badly than anyone has been treated before.
"Winning!"
It's a vision built on hatred. It's a vision Trump and his cabal of fascist fuckwits are selling.
Populism is very good at shouting about bad things (as they see it), but very light on solutions. Using Brexit as an example again, the "they're coming over here and taking our jobs" brigade bought in to everything being the EU's fault but of course had no interest in taking jobs in hospitality or fruit picking or any of the other jobs that people from other EU countries were happy to do, instead a return to blue passports and crowns on pint glasses are being hailed as a triumph over EU bureaucracy.
I think you're partially mistaken there. Some of the people who are in favor of this policy do want to work at a factory, with a misunderstanding of how factory work would be, what they'd have to do to qualify for it, or how well they would be paid to do it. The focus on returning to glory days includes an image of well-paid, easy, and no-knowledge-required factory work which is not a great match to what it would have been at the time they're thinking of and even more incorrect now. Some others may have a slightly more accurate picture and are still willing to do it, but they still have an unrealistic image of the economic realities involved.
"the price of making cars in the US is that a lot of the components are made in Canada and Mexico which are cheaper but sufficiently "nearby" for logistics. "
There can be significantly less regulation costs to making things in Canada or Mexico. It's not a bad thing to have environmental regulations, but when it means a half dozen or more agencies with overlapping authority, all of them with different reporting requirements, the cost of compliance is off the hook. There has to be entire fiefdoms within companies that do nothing but pacify regulators by feeding the forms. If it were just one agency that monitored air emissions, it would be a part time task for some employee.
Who says paying US workers would be a hit on profits? It would be increased cost.
Anyway, the EU just managed to send Trump back with his orange tail between his legs, just as China did. I bet Apples lawyers are ready to pounce of him when he tries to put illegal tariffs on one company only.
Yeah, two million Americans already buy their prescription drugs across the border, why not pick-up an iPhone at the same time!
The real question is "can Americans deal with Indian level office politics?".
I worked in a US based electronics assembly plant as a test tech. The amount of contempt you got from salaried wankers that couldn't start to understand your job if you spotted them three years was impressive, then there's the fact they're just assholes.
Our senior tech was singled out for being too smart for the management (possibly also because he was Hispanic; I suspect as much because of the Trump hats and thin blue line flags in the offices). They finally got him terminated while he was troubleshooting an optical inspection machine that the engineers weren't capable of getting working, citing that his use of a personal device to communicate with the support staff remoting in was against policy. HR personnel took a photo of him (with their own devices) and bam - done.
The machine sat there for 6 months unused with a service contract still on it, while defects piled up (also a fire he was putting out by himself and got transferred on to me), but they sure showed that uppity little tech! Well, he got to be an engineer elsewhere, and we lost our greatest knowledge asset on the floor, whereas the "cultural fit" engineers couldn't resolve any of the issues without spending weeks on it... but they won! They showed the hourly stooges their place!
I (stupidly) tried to take his place. Turns out I was exactly what the engineering team needed, having scored the highest on the interview tests out of anyone who applied with an 85%, but being called by HR a "little motherfucker" was just as good as "no" for me. It was no big surprise later that they wanted to muscle me out by making me take leave and then counting the absences against me, and so I resigned sooner than they could terminate me
The US is making a colossal mistake, borne of the fact that they have no fucking clue about the rest of the world.
This isn't hyperbole. It's being played out hourly.
India is already pissed off beyond comprehension at the way Trump took credit for the truce with Pakistan. Unlike the US, India is fiercely proud of it's military might. And it was that which bought Pakistan to the table. Not some worblings from a demented orange turd.
Now Trump is going after Indian tech. Remember where iPhones are built.
... or, one of them "has gone absolutely CRAZY!" and "will lead to the downfall of Russia!", while the other has the "emotional reactions" of a little girl gone hysterical through "emotional overload" ... or vice-versa!
This depends what goals he's trying to accomplish. If he wants Russian superiority, the answer is very different than if he wants personal wealth, pleasure, or power. Dictators have often found that the success of the country they're running is harmful to them personally, because a poorer country you can rule with an iron fist means more for you than a medium country where you may be ousted by bureaucrats you needed in order to get moderately successful, or more extremely a moderately successful country where you rule with limited authority beats a successful one where you are thrown out by the citizens who can and will demand their rights. It's not a perfect scale, and there are many exceptions, but sometimes, the actions of dictators can't be judged the way we'd normally do it.
For example, it's common to declare Putin a failure based on all the Russian soldiers who have been killed during this war, but because he doesn't care about their lives, that doesn't seem like indication of a failure from his perspective. If he values Ukrainian territory more than Russian lives, the trade could have been worth it. I'm not sure we can know what he wants now, and it probably wouldn't make much sense if he tried to explain it. Still, there's a chance that he doesn't consider it the kind of failure that it looks to us because he's going for things we wouldn't consider worth the cost.
Oh I disagree Putin is absolutely competent. He's managed to stay in power for 20+ years in a land previously ruled by rich, ruthless oligarchs. He has stamped his authority so strongly that even though the Russian Economy is tanking hard, hurting all of those Oligarchs where it hurts them most (in their wallets), not a single one has made any move against him. The one person who made a move against him, was forced to retreat, and then Putin simply shot him out of the sky with a ground to air missile. Literally. And openly. And no-one in Russia said a damn thing...
He is absolutely competent as a deranged Dictator and Tyrant. He doesnt care that the economy goes to crap (hell it might be a play to reduce the power of the Oligarchs further), nor that 250 thousand russian soldiers (at last estimate) are dead (hell that's less people of the correct age and demographic to rise up against him). He is in power, and NO one is challenging him for the top job.
The one thing he probably considers a failure is that he can no longer consider himself the equal of Xi.
If Putin were to die suddenly next week (from say a heart attack), Russia would collapse, as the various Generals, Oligarchs and Politicans would fight like crazy to be the next Czar. There is no second in command in Russia, there is only Putin.
"Calling Putin competent is a step too far."
It depends on what his grand plan is. Vlad has firmly entrenched himself into a position where he controls unlimited wealth (as far as it counts for an individual) with an indoor job that doesn't require heavy lifting. If that is his plan, he's been very competent in carrying it out. If he wasn't competent, he'd be swimming with the earthworms.
Companies gravitate to the environment best suited for them to work.
At the moment, that looks like "anywhere except Trumpistan"...
Isn't the Government telling companies what to do and where to invest and what to charge... like somewhere between Socialism and Communism?
Strictly speaking the President can't alter tariffs or other trade terms on a whim. There's a process but, needless to say, there's always some emergency that authorizes bypassing that process. The problem is that once you keep claiming that everything's an emergency and using these supposedly temporary powers not to target some 'enemy' or 'adversary' country but rather against corporations, institutions or even individuals seemingly on a whim clearly oversteps the President's power and will likely provoke a successful legal challenge. This could well bring Trump's entire house of cards down around his ears.
Trump's rule by executive order is subject to numerous legal challenges and only appears firm because of the long lag times in the legal system. There is an attempt in the "Big, Beautiful Bill" to emasculate the Federal court system by effectively making it impossible for them to issue injunctions but this provision has been discovered (despite being expertly hidden) and is unlikely to survive either the Senate or the inevitable court challenge.
We would be well served by not continuing to report Trump's administration's actions as those of a competent administration in touch with the nation but rather the ravings of a fringe group of loonies who are trying to change the fundamental nature of our nation. This isn't a new issue -- Bush 2's administration pushed the concept of the Unitary Executive, for example -- but the overall lack of competence of what are essentially a bunch of self-motivated amateurs focused entirely on power achieves little, hurts many and leaves a huge mess for everyone to clean up. Telling like it obviously is now would help save everyone a lot of time and trouble.
He guts the investment in tech factories (and I mean proper tech, not tech-bro bollocks), guts the school system, and tries to disable the universities.
Then in the next breath, he's calling for companies to build their stuff in America.
To him, a tariff can do everything.
There goes my ability to visit the USA(!)
Countries need to start thinking longer than the 2 time extra from Playboy Adult Video's does. I mean he's thinking, and so are the elected officials in the US, in four year chunks, the rest of the wold needs to start thinking in 10 and 20 year increments and tell the wanna be strong man to do whatever he wants, we'll all be here when he's crashed the US economy and they get some adults in the room, but this time, we'll have the upper hand, something China has already done
"Trump said stuff about tariffs" - that should be the headline.
The body of the article should just be screen shots of his deranged social media postings. Why waste time on anything more.
If and when any of the myriad import tariffs he has constantly mused about actually come into effect, the only response from the rest of the world should be matching export tariffs. Double plus good.
He started with us in Canada (and Mexico). The meandering story so far would be a decent sized book. What has actually happened? "Tariffs first day in office!" Nope. "Tariffs in Feb!" Nope. "Tariffs in Mar!" Nope. "Tariffs in Apr!" Nope. Tariffs on this and that and the other thing coming this week, this month, next month, in the fall, blah blah blah. "There has been yet another magnanimous extension!" Whoop dee do. Why engage at all.
$1200 iPhone, how does that break down exactly? It wouldn't surprise me if actual production cost was around $100. So double it who cares. It also wouldn't surprise me if at least $500 was for marketing, lawyers, accountants, consultants, patent licensing, IP transfers, interest on debts, stockholder dividends, executive golden parachutes, a bunch of new art for the corporate palace, etc etc etc. And $600 for profit, where there is plenty of room for triple digit increases in production costs, due to tariffs, or due to wages for some token assemblers in the USA. Even if passed on to the consumer I have a hard time seeing how massive increases in production costs would lead to massive increases in retail prices since retail prices are almost entirely composed of completely unrelated other bullshit. Please correct my cynicism.
You are incorrect about a few things. For example, unless I've misinterpreted the "He started with us in Canada (and Mexico). The meandering story so far would be a decent sized book. What has actually happened?" part, you think that the tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been postponed? That's wrong. They were postponed a couple times, and some others that were talked about, possibly not seriously, haven't gone into effect. However, there are active tariffs from 10-25%, active right now if people try to import things from Canada or Mexico into the US. Those are real. Those are being charged to people and they are paying them as we write. The tariffs on China, people are paying those too. The tariffs on everybody: active. The extra tariffs on the EU: not active yet, but that global tariff does apply to them already. Those are not fictional.
"It wouldn't surprise me if actual production cost was around $100."
Do you have any reason to expect that price is anywhere close to actual costs? Before we pull some numbers from the internet, let's consider what would happen if that was real. If Apple can get those components for $100, then so can any other smartphone manufacturer with enough money to buy enough components to get the bulk pricing. Apple could still get a premium because of IOS, but we'd expect that some Android manufacturer would be making comparable hardware and selling it for only a little more than components and manufacturing. Is that happening? No, it's not. There are very cheap Android phones, true, but they use LCDs, not OLEDs, their processors are not Apple-class, they use normal cheap cameras for facial recognition instead of Apple's infrared thing, there are obvious differences that allow the price to be lower. The components Apple puts in their devices could not be purchased for that price.
There's a slow way to do this: go to parts suppliers who state their prices and figure out how much you have to pay for an OLED display of comparable resolution even if you plan to buy a million of them. There's a faster way: use estimated numbers from people who already did some of this. Like these people who estimate component and manufacturing costs for the base-level iPhone 16 at $495. That's sold for $800, so Apple has 38% of that to cover software, R&D, distribution, and profit. Of course, that number isn't exact, and Apple can probably save on some of those, so their margin might be a little more. It's not going to be $100. If you could obtain similar components and manufacture them into a phone for that price, you should start a smartphone company.
A 25% tariff on all Canadian goods. Not on day 1. Not in January. Not in February. In March, and then the next day the tariffs on energy, which are our biggest export to them, are lowered to 10% - because they need that. An extra 25% on steel and aluminum never materialized - because they need that. An extra 25% on the auto industry DOA - because they need that. Well, maybe in the future, but meanwhile nothing on "USMCA compliant goods", which is basically everything. Now maybe a 100% tariff on movies? Except nobody can even start to imagine how exactly that would be supposed to work. Canada doesn't need to say a word to Mr. Trump, because every time he says "Tariffs!!! What a beautiful word!! Big fat beautiful tariffs will fix everything!" every businessman in his country says "NO YOU DUMMY!!! FACTORIES WILL SHUT DOWN!! THE PEOPLE WILL HATE YOU!" and he caves.
Meanwhile in Canada you basically can't get USA liquor. Nobody is buying their agricultural output. There are retaliatory tariffs on most of the few things that are actually made in the USA. Most of what Canada buys from the USA is just USA companies selling on things that they got from China, and we are quickly figuring out how to route around that middleman. Plus nobody is taking the risk of trying to cross that border. There is an international bidding war on doctors and nurses and teachers and students who are reconsidering being located in the USA.
What I said about a $1200 iPhone is that I wouldn't be surprised if it costed as little as $100 to actually manufacture. From your link the manufacturing cost for an $800 iPhone is somewhere between $400-600. Not exactly out of the ballpark of the 50% profit I assumed?? Plus is that the cost to you and me? I imagine the cost to Apple might be somewhat lower than $400. Let's go with $400, Let's say I could get the components for an $800 iPhone for $400 and put them together in my garage and sell them for $600 - I don't think I would put a very big dent in their sales. A "yPhone" from buddy down the road just wouldn't have enough prestige to convince enough punters to be seen with one even for $200 left in their pocket. But other people are successful at it, Apple has the biggest share of the global smart phone market but not by much and nowhere near a majority.
So yes there are tariffs on Canadian goods going to the USA, but nothing even remotely like the across the board 25% plus plus plus that he keeps banging on about. And yes a $1200 iPhone probably costs more than $100 to manufacture, but a 50% profit margin is not the ravings of a lunatic. Interesting times.
"What I said about a $1200 iPhone is that I wouldn't be surprised if it costed as little as $100 to actually manufacture. From your link the manufacturing cost for an $800 iPhone is somewhere between $400-600. Not exactly out of the ballpark of the 50% profit I assumed??"
Are we calculating the same way? To me, a $100 manufacturing cost and a $1200 selling price is a 1100% margin*, and a $500 cost (no, not $400, that wasn't in their range) and a $800 selling price is a 60% margin, and 60 and 1100 are very different numbers.
* And it is margin, not profit. Those costs include how much it costs to get an A18 chip from TSMC, but not how much it costed to design the A18 they made, since Apple also pays for that. The costs for the software are not included either.
You're right that many of the threatened tariffs on Canada didn't go into effect as strongly as threatened. However, that's a very different story to the picture you've painted in either of your comments. Everyone knows that Trump threatens far more than he enacts, but there are tariffs in place and have been for some time. That they're not as high as he once claimed he'd make them does not change the fact that they are a lot higher than they were four months ago. That's why Canada has all those retaliatory ones you know about; the US did impose real tariffs.
What makes you say that? Any country can be blamed for problems, real or imagined, and threatened with some ridiculous number. Most of the most ridiculous numbers haven't gone into effect with the exception of those on China, which were very real and aren't normal now that they've been backed off a little. The UK can get a threat any day now, and nothing says that it will be lower than the threat the EU got, or that the end result of the negotiation will give it a lower number. All it means is that the specific threat announced then doesn't affect you, but since making threats is free, that doesn't make any difference.
@doublelayer
"What makes you say that?"
Facts. Even our idiot Starmer managed to go smooth things over with Trump. If we were in the EU we would have to wait and see what the EU leadership could cobble together in agreement with all its members and their conflicting demands.
"The UK can get a threat any day now"
And then the UK gov would probably go to negotiate. Aka good job we aint in the EU waiting for them to get it sorted out.
But I only mentioned the obvious benefit for the fun of trolling the fanatics who I assumed would be upset enough to downvote but not daft enough to try and suggest otherwise. It is fun now the shoe is on the other foot.
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