Comment on Trump says he plans to put a 100% tariff on computer chips, likely pushing up cost of electronics
artyom@piefed.social 8 months agoWhat? Are you putting American chips in these phones made in China? Why would you think they wouldn't be subjected to the chip tariff?
The question comes down to whether a phone with a chip in it is subject to the tariff or just raw chips being imported. No one is putting a US chip in it, because US chips don’t exist. The foundries to make them don’t exist.
If the assembled phone is subject to a “phone” or “general” tariff at 30% and not the 100% chip tariff then it incentivises manufacturing in china vs the US is what I think the OP is saying.
Why wouldn't the tariff apply to chips already in devices? That's the way its always been discussed.
Because tariffs are crude pieces of legislation. The US can’t make their own phones anyway, even with 1000% china tariffs, for years. You can’t just click your fingers and have manufacturing at that scale and quality exist.
Whether they can or do make their own chips is irrelevant to who is impacted by tariffs.
tariffs are over the final product, not the individual components inside that product.
For example Ford was making a cargo van in turkey, but thanks to the chicken tax that they themselves lobbied for, a cargo van made in turkey would have a 25% tariff. Solution: make passenger vans in turkey, import them with 0% tariff, then pay an american to remove and send the passenger seats to the landfill and get a cargo van
Perhaps somehow we still believe he wouldn’t fuck over Americans that much.
There’s chips in everything and they simply won’t be made domestically any time soon.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 8 months ago
there’s a youtube video from “smarter every day” that showed his attempt to make something 100% in the USA.
The item was just a barbecue scrubber, with just a few components.
He needed a simple screw… NOBODY made that in the US…
He needed a simple plastic knob… NOBODY made that in the US (he bought 10k “american” knobs but once arrived there was a MADE IN COSTA RICA sign)
He wanted to make injection molds in the US… NOBODY did that, he had to find some retired expert to help him.
So, if you assemble stuff in US, you still need to import EVERYTHING, paying the same tariff and with more expensive labor. Tariffs need to be carefully considered and target a specific item in order to have some positive effect
artyom@piefed.social 8 months ago
I don't understand what any of that has to do with this discussion.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Serious or trolling?
You said:
Then I explained to you why it works like this:
Manufactured in the USA = tariffs and expensive labor.
Manufactured outside the USA = tariffs and cheap labor.
It’s really that simple.
Tariffs on everything is an incentive on manufacturing outside the USA as the supply chain is missing and all the parts need to be imported too.
The story would be different if those were targeted tariffs on specific products. In that case it would work in the opposite way
artyom@piefed.social 8 months ago
God, this response is just fucking lazy and boring. You could at least make interesting when you lob ad hominems because you don't understand the conversation. We were not discussing the merits of tariffs, we were discussing the facts. And the fact is that tariffs only negatively impact imported goods, by nature of being a tariff...