Hardware hacker Bunnie Huang has written concrete details in his blog about how the new US tariffs are anti-maker and will promote offshoring. However, it is not quite too late ... yet. With the right pushback it might be possible to salvage the situation.
The new 25% tariffs announced by the USTR, set to go into effect on July 6th, are decidedly anti-Maker and ironically pro-offshoring. I've examined the tariff lists (List 1 and List 2), and it taxes the import of basic components, tools and sub-assemblies, while giving fully assembled goods a free pass. The USTR's press release is careful to mention that the tariffs "do not include goods commonly purchased by American consumers such as cellular telephones or televisions."
[...] There is a sliver of good news in all of this for American Makers. The list of commodities targeted in the trade war is not yet complete. The "List 2" items – which include all manner of microchips, motors, and plastics (such as 3D printer PLA filament and acrylic sheets for laser cutting) that are building blocks for small businesses and Makers – have yet to be ratified. The USTR website has indicated in the coming weeks they will disclose a process for public review and comment.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday June 23 2018, @07:11AM (3 children)
Everybody needs to just chill the f out. The odds of any new tariffs going into effect and staying long enough to matter are nill. This is just Trump negotiating. Wall Street is even shrugging it off. Good to not just surrender before the real haggling begins, we aren't used to seeing this sort of thing but it will all be ok.
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Saturday June 23 2018, @07:45AM
I disagree. That would only make sense if he knew what he is doing rather than just running his mouth with the brain disengaged. Those with actual diplomatic or business skills are running circles around him all the while playing him like a violin. Nipping his antics in the bud will save a lot of work and expense later.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:04AM (1 child)
I remember ten years ago when all the online forums were screaming about how the US needed tariffs to combat pollution. What we need is for the democrats to implement them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:46PM
There is case for tariffs to offset the lack of worker and environmental protections in other countries (esp. China). Particularly since mercury, CO2, SO2, etc. released anywhere in the world eventually fuck everywhere in the world, so it IS our problem encouraging the short-term externalization of these costs.
However what I just wrote is opposite of what Trump believes so not a factor in the China tariffs. Not having listened to his argument for tariffs, I'd wager it's primarily about tax cuts for billionaires and a reduction in quality of life for everyone (including billionaires ultimately).
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 23 2018, @07:57AM (3 children)
Just pay the extra 3 cents for your fucking LEDs, you tightwads. Sheesh, I'm not well-off in any sense of the word but if I want or need to build something, I shell out the fucking pennies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @08:47AM (1 child)
This is not just an issue for a few 'makers' that are building up one-off or small run projects. What this does is make 'Made in USA' products using overseas sourced components (which is close to pretty much everything electronic) that much more expensive. With these taxes on the raw components, the bill of materials cost increases, and the final sale cost with it.
So now the products that are currently made in USA, but use a lot of these components, will be even less competitive when compared to competing products 'Made in not-USA'.
Making some fully imported consumer products 'exempt' is a huge fail for many local US manufacturers, not just a few 'makers'.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:01AM
And deals with overseas problems like counterfeit ICs which repeatedly fail in your life-critical or mission-critical applications. There's a thing called cost-benefit analysis, you can even do it with 1998 Excel and linear regression. And yet, despite being to central to many American businesses, the Chinks still haven't figured it out. Hmm, prices are going up and quality is getting worse, perhaps we'd better find suppliers in geographical locations more friendly to us, with a reasonable cost-benefit?
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 23 2018, @10:24AM
I know you're too young to remember this but we already covered this [youtube.com] back when I was a kid. Tariffs are not the way to go except using the threat of them as a deterrent against government subsidized industries in other nations. Not because they're "unfair" or anything but because they just don't work.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @08:49AM (8 children)
A 25 % tariff is not going to move production back to the US. China wants to manufacture stuff with motivated and efficient workers, and few rules about safety, environment, overtime, etc. If I want to have some prototypes CNCed, US shops treat me like dirt because it's a small job, and they charge an arm and a leg. If I put the drawings on Alibaba, a bunch of companies want to do the work, and quality is decent.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:08AM (7 children)
...Until you find out at the last minute, if you even bothered to measure dimensions yourself when it got to you, that your mid-grade alloy is full of pits and voids and the runout spans 5 standard deviations from the tolerances outlined in the drawing.
That's okay if you have a fetish for proto-futuristic metal caveman clubs. Not okay for anything else. Welcome to the bronze-age, my friend. Except that I doubt the Chinese even know how to deal with the galling and other characteristics of bronze.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday June 23 2018, @10:00AM (6 children)
The quality of electronic components that are manufactured in China can be just as good as you are prepared to pay. Sure, you can select budget items that come at a few cents each or, in this case, circuit boards with pits, voids and measured in some obscure unit or other. Alternatively, you can pay a little more but still a very competitive price and obtain what you want at the quality you want. There is a reason that much of what the US buys is made in China. It is made to a price and, if you are prepared to pay a decent price (but still much cheaper than it costs to buy US manufactured using US components) then you can get what you want. These tariffs will hurt US manufacturers at least as much as it will the foreign suppliers. Have you tried selling your Harley Davidson motorcycles, Levi jeans, Southern Comfort or a host of other products made in the USA in Europe recently? Tariffs go both ways you know...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 23 2018, @10:51AM (2 children)
Levi jeans suck. I have bought a few, recently, when Boston Dynamics started requiring pants on the job and the same pair of shorts I was washing in the sink every night wasn't going to cut it. The stress on the belt loops in jeans sold in America causes holes in only a few months of use. Pretty bad for Denim. Previously, it took years of wear to inflict the same stress on better jeans, including Levis' jeans. Don't even get me started on Chinese-made Harleys. As for SoCo, it is a tasty liquor and especially so when combined with orange soda, but my drink of choice is cheap Gallo wine. [gallo.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday June 23 2018, @01:33PM
Well that will be a great comfort to the workers from those companies if, and when, they are made redundant.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:57PM
I don't know what kind of faggot follows you around down-voting, but nothing you say is wrong. I too hate the holes that develop just above the back pockets, like they were designed from engineers to have all the stress of pants focus on that little area to get a hole within 12 months. Also the jean thickness now a days is akin to that of toilet paper. Sure they seem smoother to wear, like a pair of silk garments, but honestly if I actually worked a physical job in them, they would disintegrate.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:09PM (2 children)
I think most of those tariffs you mention are retaliatory, for the latest round of silliness ... not sure about the jeans though. I know we do make Levis jeans in Canada.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 23 2018, @04:37PM (1 child)
I agree, the European tariffs are retaliatory.
And I expect that the tariffs currently in place against China will also provoke an additional response, despite the reasons that the US Government claims they have been imposed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:52PM
Irrelevant. To your typical Trump voter, he's stickin' it to the man and givin' the other fella Hell! USA USA USA!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @11:48AM (2 children)
Cuz makers can't make shit without lego-ized subassemblies with step by step youtube instructions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:11PM (1 child)
Right, because if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:07PM
You know, these days "let there be light" is as easy as flipping a switch...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:26PM (1 child)
Stick it to China, Trump. Get concessions from the Chinese as they have been flagrantly violating agreements with us for decades, and the agreements were written to favor China at that because they were a developing nation back then starting from nothing. Time for a renegotiation and for China to see their #1 customer has leverage over them.
It's necessary and long overdue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @05:55PM
I'm assuming you've paid the licensing fee for every piece of software and movie you've watched?
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday June 23 2018, @08:37PM
Dynamic tariffs, targeted at specific trading partners and industries, automatically applied and removed in response to 3rd party assessments of conditions, should be a part of U.S. trade policy. But Trump and company are too dense to understand how to implement them. The ham-handed approach the Trump administration is taking with their tariffs will likely result in permanently removing tariffs from the toolbox.