• SaltSong@startrek.website
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    20 hours ago

    What he means is, if I buy an iPhone built in China, this tariff won’t affect the price I pay.

    But if I buy a phone built in America, with an imported processer, this tariff will make that phone more expensive.

    • artyom@piefed.social
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      20 hours ago

      Not correct. Once again, tariffs only affect imported goods. If you buy an iPhone built in China (assuming you import to the US) you’re going to pay a tariff on the device.

      If you buy a phone built in America, with Chinese processors, you only pay tariff on the processor.

      • SaltSong@startrek.website
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        5 hours ago

        Right, but this tariff, at least as I understand it, is on chips imported as chips, not on products that contain chips. An iPhone will, of course, be subject to some other damn fool tariff, but not this specific one.

        Of course, my understanding of this specific tariff may be wrong.

          • SaltSong@startrek.website
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            4 hours ago

            That’s generally how tariffs work. A tariff on grain is not a tariff on bread. A tariff on steel is not a tariff on knives. A tariff on cotton is not a tariff on clothing.

            It can be, of course. A tariff can be on steel and items made with steel. But that’s not usually the case, and it’s usually called out as such. Of course, Trump is not what you’d call the most precise communicator in the world, but all we can do is work with what he says.

            • artyom@piefed.social
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              4 hours ago

              That’s not how tariffs work. You can’t just circumvent them by packaging them differently.

              • SaltSong@startrek.website
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                4 hours ago

                Packaging, no. But manufacturing it into something else, yes.

                Do you think a tariff on copper would apply to an iPhone? Or a tariff on oil?

                • artyom@piefed.social
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                  3 hours ago

                  Do you think a tariff on copper would apply to an iPhone?

                  …of course?

                  Or a tariff on oil?

                  Do your iPhones usually take oil? 🤔

      • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        He meant that this is a disincentive to manufacture a phone in the USA.

        Phone built in china: 30% tariff on the total assembled unit (this week is 30% or it changed again?)

        Phone built in USA: 30% tariff on all the components because they’re made in China, 100% tariff on the processor, AND spend 1000% more in assembling the device because finding, training and paying skilled workers is way more expensive

        Maybe there might be an incentive to move production to a country different from China, but the situation changes too wildly. The risk of spend millions to move production to Vietnam to get a lower rate, then a week later Trump gets diarrhea from eating a bahn mi and imposes an immediate 50% tariff as revenge

        • artyom@piefed.social
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          13 hours ago

          What? Are you putting American chips in these phones manufactured in China? Why would you think they wouldn’t be subjected to the chip tariff?

          If you manufactured it in the USA there are no tariffs. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. Manufactured in the USA = no tariffs. Manufactured outside the USA = tariffs. It’s really that simple.

          Labor has always been more expensive in the US, that’s why tariffs exist.

          • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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            5 hours 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

              • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                Serious or trolling?

                You said:

                If you manufactured it in the USA there are no tariffs. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

                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
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                  3 hours ago

                  Serious or trolling?

                  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…

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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            12 hours ago

            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.

            • artyom@piefed.social
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              11 hours ago

              Why wouldn’t the tariff apply to chips already in devices? That’s the way its always been discussed.

              • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                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

              • overload@sopuli.xyz
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                5 hours ago

                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.

                • artyom@piefed.social
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                  5 hours ago

                  Whether they can or do make their own chips is irrelevant to who is impacted by tariffs.

              • trashcan@sh.itjust.works
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                8 hours ago

                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.