You can pause the tariffs but you can’t pause the uncertainty you’ve introduced into the system, Don.
Smartphones and computers are now exempt from Trump’s latest tariffs.
Submitted 5 weeks ago by Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech/trump-electronics-china-tariffs/index.html
Comments
grte@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Especially when he has basically admitted that it is stock market manipulation. Everyone knows the tariffs will return or potentially even something stupider.
Bonus@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Somebody got a call from Tim Apple. So much for the clamor to make iPhones in the US. More American jobs vaporized, just like that.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Building iPhones in the US was never going to happen, it would double or triple the price if we did it here.
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
It’s not about the price. There just isn’t enough capacity and workers to build that many.
errer@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
IllNess@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
Why? People probably panic upgraded.
The Trump tariffs are doing as intended, manipulating the market.
Bonus@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Pretty sick of these kinds of doomsdayers rolling over and spreading panic instead of focusing on calling out all the bullshit. Not that that’s even an effective approach. What needs to be repeated over and over is the obvious failures in simple enough terms they can become mantras, slogans, ways of beating the propagandists at their own game. We’re more creative and smarter than them yet we let ourselves lose the propaganda war. Well, not us per se, but legacy media and feckless Democrats.
boonhet@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I don’t think the general populace was particularly interested in buying 5000 dollar US made smartphones lmao
Bonus@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Nope. Just ludicrous propositions to terrorize everyone on the planet.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Lol. Conservatives don’t care. Libs fucking OWNED. We got fucking OWNED, y’all.
Do you feel it? Does it fucking hurt to be owned by poor people who will now be poorer with less options?
They fucking showed us. And themselves. Fuck yeah!!!
Ignorance is strength!!!
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Now this loophole will make sure everything is a cell phone or computer. Every toy will suddenly have gps a gig of ram and a touch screen. Micromachines are going to be lit.
Litebit@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Even potato chips will identify as micro chips.
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
ZeroCool flavored Doritos.
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
No. Even a large tariff on a 3$ piece of plastic that retails for 20-30 won’t be worth adding anything.
Mavytan@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
I’m not so sure about that. With tarrifs of over 100%, manufacturers can add over a 100% to the cost of production and still come out ahead… Alternatively they could move production, but that only makes sense to do if it’s cheaper than adding just enough electronics to make the items exempt from tarrifs
DrCake@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
What a pussy. Got a call from Tim Apple and caved immediately.
I feel like the uncertainty is worse for business than the actual tarries at this point
InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Tim apple sms’d him a single picture.
Course, the picture was the back of his neck in a sniper scope.
Sometimes pictures speak louder than words.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Folding like a cheap suit after making duuuuumbfuck decisions.
A true American hero.
The conservative savior.
A cult.
It’s a cult.
uienia@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
At least he made all his billionaire backers a lot of extra money from all of this.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
$AAPL stonk go up.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Before Trump announced it publicly. Martha Stewart was jailed for less.
Snowstorm@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
How can we price the stock correctly if we don’t know how much of the profit margin needs to be cut to account for bribes? If Apple shouldered the bribe on its own is this a disadvantage when their competitors gets tariff relief for free? Do they pay every 3 months or every year? Maybe we learn the bribe price on the quarterly conference call? Apple has some kind of leverage against the US government and this isn’t an expense?
I have more questions than a three years old!
pyre@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
after all his cronies got on TV talking about making iphones in the US … fucking lol.
ChristmasApe@discuss.online 5 weeks ago
Come on China, send a message and slap export duties on them until Trump buckles again.
0x0@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
Just outright embargo the US, period.
ChristmasApe@discuss.online 5 weeks ago
I like how you think.
riodoro1@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
And somehow american gagging only made the Chinese dick grow in it’s mouth.
Art of the fellatio.
cygnus@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Oh, so the two largest line items among Chinese imports.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Xiami/Oppo phones in US for the win.
2ugly2live@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’m starting to think this Trump guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. /s
SGforce@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Today, sure.
4am@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
If electronics fall out of favor, it will be harder to profile and track us
Tempus_Fugit@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
yesoutwater@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
US/Trump blinking continues. If electronics jobs were both desirable and already on a partial progress groove, then surely apparel/toys tariffs are next to be removed, and then only US military electronics will be 145% tariffed, if not blacklisted by China.
Trade deficit with China just substantially increased. US energy, ag, big ticket industrial exports just went to 0.
Is switch 2 a computer?
lorski@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Not any more!! you cannot trust a word that comes out of the shit gibbons mouth hole.
Litebit@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
You mean Americans are spared from tax on smartphones and computers.
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
The iPhones must flow.
expatriado@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
tim cook wrote a check to one of trump businesses, quite probably
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20xn626y81o
exemptions also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.
Holy fuck on solar cells!!! Huge boost for cost of solar outside of China imported to US, or made in US from Chinese cell supplies.
This can significantly accelerate US solar adoption. If Trump manages to lower interest rates, that is biggest payoff gain for solar/battery projects.
Litebit@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yes it is just a form of “GST/VAT” on goods imported by Americans into US. It is a tax paid for by Americans.
It is cool way to distract people and collect more taxes. By using the phrase “tariff on china” instead of “raising taxes on Americans”.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Trump complains about other nations VAT as a justification for original “reciprocal” tariffs. If US could export any significant manufacturing goods, implementing its own VAT would be a means of taxing consumption while giving exporters a bigger tax break than just manufacturers for domestic consumption.
If everything else deserves exemptions too, a VAT would be the same, and allow funding for more tax cuts for the rich that Trump says will also save America.
Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
what about switch 2
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
That can be considered a computer or phone so sounds like it’s exempt.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Based on the CSMS statement elseware in the thread and my limited google-fu, it looks like swicth one was 9504.50, which isn’t on the list of exemptions.
That said, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Nintendo figured out a few tweaks in the feature list that would allow them to claim it as one of the exempted categories.
lowleveldata@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
Are they just kind of saying things at this point?
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
he has to poke all of these holes in his threats, which tells me he’s not bluffing. the end goal is not negotiation, but a huge tariff wall.
Alenalda@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
you dont want to keep your propaganda spreading technologies unaffordable
maplebar@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Does anyone know what reciprocal means?
Just checking.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 5 weeks ago
It means China bad America good.
JoshuaBrusque@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s almost like they don’t know what they’re doing.
QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Unless it’s just plain old stock market manipulation with a twist.
kescusay@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Nah. It’s not almost like that. Nope. It’s exactly that.
This is weaponized incompetence and stupidity.
Snowstorm@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
I split this evolving situation according to different scenarios and try to weight their relative probability. What’s the motive, where’s the gain?
A) 80% Some variation of pure incompetence where they tried some shit with whatever aim and weren’t prepared for the hard pushback they got served quickly and decisively. Current events are capitulation, at least for a moment.
B) 15% We are in a Russia-like scenario where this administration needs to govern from fear : population fear deportation and can’t elect another government and fear from the companies that he can crash anything at will without remorse : pay regularly to avoid the destruction of your business model. Mafia protection tax will be lucrative for the few people at the very top.
C) 5% Wider destruction of society with genocide and a new flavour of slavery. Luckily this one is difficult and stoping at a mid point, pivoting to B, is easier. Achieving stability in a “network city” scenario doesn’t seems plausible to me : one small example: try to manufacture stuff to give your ruler class quality healthcare without any scale because war killed so much people… modern stuff is outrageously complicated.