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posted by martyb on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the tired-of-winning dept.

Trump's China Tariffs Claim Another Victim: A South Carolina TV Manufacturing Plant:

The tariffs imposed by President Trump have claimed more jobs, this time at a consumer-electronics manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

Element Electronics blamed tariffs on Chinese imports for its decision to shut down its manufacturing facilities in Winnsboro, SC, a town located about 30 miles north of the state's capital. The plant, which makes Element TVs, will maintain a skeleton crew of eight workers, as it hopes the shutdown will be temporary."

The news is especially hard for Winnsboro and its surrounding communities because of recent job losses in the area, including the shuttering of a Walmart store, the closing of a textile mill, and the cancellation of plans to construct two nuclear reactors.

Element notified the state's Department of Employment about its plans, according to Columbia-based The State newspaper, which first reported on the plant's closing. In its notification, Element stated, "The layoff and closure is a result of the new tariffs that were recently and unexpectedly imposed on many goods imported from China, including the key television components used in our assembly operations in Winnsboro."


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by lentilla on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:49AM (5 children)

    by lentilla (1770) on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:49AM (#719265)

    Wouldn't it be better if we (USA) made the parts instead of being dependent on China?

    Yes; it would; however you'd need to put a tariff on imported finished goods as well as imported parts to even the playing field. Almost nobody will buy a USA-made television for $500 when they can buy a Chinese-import for $250 (Veblen goods excepted).

    For the life of me, I can't understand why the USA has put an import tariff on imported parts but not the finished items. It doesn't make sense - in fact it seems completely backwards. Surely if you want to Make America Great Again (and by that, I assume the intention is to have a healthy manufacturing sector), you'd either tax imports carte-blanche, or tax imported completed goods (the "lite" version).

    Is anybody able to explain the rationale behind taxing imported parts? It just doesn't make sense.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:28PM (#719332)

    So, everybody gets into selling Veblin goods!

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:17PM (2 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:17PM (#719379)

    I wasn't even aware of that, but I'll speculate: USA is trying to protect manufacturing jobs all the way down to the raw materials. Other countries already do tariff our finished goods. If we tariff the finished goods, other countries will retaliate with even more tariffs.

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:19PM

      by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 09 2018, @02:19PM (#719380)

      [ on our finished goods. ]

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:21PM (#719581)

      I think the real reason is that the Commerce Secretary has a lot of money tied up in the raw materials side of trade, as compared to the finished goods side. He's already made millions of dollars on the tariffs by shorting stock before the tariffs came out (when caught, he basically said "oops, I didn't know I had those stocks").

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday August 10 2018, @02:30AM

    by legont (4179) on Friday August 10 2018, @02:30AM (#719752)

    Finished items are mostly made of parts produced outside of China. It would be unfair to charge Chinese for reexport. On the other hand, parts are more likely to be really made in China.

    The whole thing is complicated because deficit is counted on the face value of finished product. Say (lazy to actually check the number) iphone causes reported deficit of $300 while real Chinese participation is about $6.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.