Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

I’d deem it extremely unlikely that US customs processing or the express carriers will be able to handle that overflow in anything like a reasonable timeframe.

> Only if "utterly fucked" somehow means you can still pay a bit more to DHL and get packages even faster than USPS.

That probably will work for like a week, considering how fast and reckless the administration moves.

Because there's nowhere in the US like Shenzhen, Guangdong or Hong Kong.

Remember how Apple couldn't just pick up and move the production of iPhones to India or Vietnam? You need all the ancillary industries around the production to be there, along with being competitive and commoditized as well.

When a supplier has something go wrong a line of manufacturing doesn't go down. You go down the street to the same guy selling the same thing and have them pick up the slack. If you want a 1uF ceramic cap come hell or high water there's going to be a dozen people selling them all quoting a price a little above cost. When Apple moved production to India and Vietnam? When you hear Apple talking about a few billion in investment in Indonesia? This is what they're helping set up and what takes a decade to do.

Anyone can buy automation equipment but there's nowhere in the US you can do what JLCPCB/PCBWay do with PCB and electronics assembling because we literally don't manufacture all the ancillary stuff required in the US, little alone manufacture it all in the same place. If the SMT components are manufactured domestically say for military purposes it's going to be spread out all over the US because politicians pork barrel contracts for their districts and states.

You could setup next to a Mouser distribution hub but Mouser is a middleman and they have you over a barrel. What do middlemen do in that situation? They raise prices just enough to the point where it's uneconomical to leave.

You metaphorically need to invent the universe to make it work in the US.

Prices in the West are maximized with the goal of reaching the peak point on the supply vs demand curve. Prices in the East, and China in particular, are minimized [presumably?] with the goal of maximizing longterm marketshare. One of the easiest examples of this is water [1] because it's a relatively low-labor, low-processing industry. Yet a bottle of water in the West tends to cost about 700% more than a bottle of water in Asia. As a result of this I can buy a bottle of water in the middle of the desert in the Mideast for a tiny fraction of what I'd pay in Michigan which, alone, has ~20% of the entire world's fresh water supply.

This is also why GDP is extremely misleading. PPP is supposed to account for these differences but often is often wrong by a rather wide margin for many critical industries.

[1] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/bottled-w...

> The question is how did we let it go this far?

Because allowing countries to maximize their comparative advantages is great for economic growth. It doesn’t make sense for every nation on earth to have their own copy of every industrial sector. We don’t need all nations to manufacture their own jet engines, oil tankers, t-shirts, and Tylenol. Trade is good.

The idea that China is a major security threat is basically brand new. Half of century of economic policy can’t be reversed in 5 years.

> The question is how did we let it go this far? Why has there never been serious Western alternatives to JLCPCB, PCBWay, JLCCNC etc.? Has anyone asked themselves how these Chinese firms are so cheap?

It’s not really a secret. They have cheap labor. Very lax environmental standards (big deal for PCB manufacturing). They have a high density of manufacturing and production. One factory can get their materials and machines from other factories nearby. Their government manipulates exchange rates.

People are also quick to forget US companies that serve these same markets. OSH Park was doing cheap PCB panel share before JLCPCB was a common name. Boards manufactured right in the United States. They don’t have the volume of JLCPCB but they’ve been doing cheap boards for hobbyists for a long time: https://docs.oshpark.com/services/

There are US PCB makers who do prototypes. Sierra Circuits [1] is in Sunnyvale, CA. Pentalogix is near Portland, OR.[2] But 5 small boards will cost about US$75 each.

[1] https://www.protoexpress.com

[2] https://www.pentalogix.com/

> Why has there never been serious Western alternatives to JLCPCB, PCBWay, JLCCNC etc? Has anyone asked themselves how these Chinese firms are so cheap?

Of course we've asked ourselves that, we know the answers too! Manufacturing costs are so low, and the cost of shipping is so low.

I recently made contact with a manufacturer at a trade fair in Europe.

I was wanting a sample of their product, they had one at their stand - I had it in my hands - but due to time constraints we didn't have time to seal the deal on the day and I had to leave town.

So they ended up taking the item all the way back to Asia, and then a week or so later air-freighted it all the way back to Europe. Shipping cost was approx USD55, they shipped it out on a Friday, it was delivered on the Monday.

I post this elsewhere, i'll just put it here again:

Due to underdeveloped economies, developing countries cannot avoid economic dependence on developed countries, especially in areas such as high technology, equipment, and precision instruments. However, this dependence varies depending on the development stage of each country. For example, African nations primarily require food to sustain basic living conditions.

Regardless of their specific needs, this situation has resulted in a unique exchange mechanism: developing countries must offer their best products in exchange for goods from developed countries. As a result, people in developing countries are unable to enjoy the finest products produced in their own countries, and sometimes not even second-tier products, as these are reserved for foreign consumers.

The U.S. market features products from various countries and regions, including China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Jamaica, and Mexico. The world's finest products flow into the U.S. market in exchange for U.S. dollars. As everyone competes to obtain dollars, competition intensifies, leading to high product quality and low prices. This has created unprecedented prosperity in the U.S. market. This outcome is a result of market mechanisms and the benefits that the U.S. has gained from the global status of the dollar, established by the Bretton Woods Conference after World War II.

However, the massive influx of foreign products into the U.S. has also impacted its domestic industries, causing factory closures and rising unemployment. This issue cannot be ignored, which is why the forces of free trade and protectionism in the U.S. have been in constant conflict.

— Wang Huning, America Against America

as long as the US still export USD to exchange products, this situation will not change

> how these Chinese firms are so cheap?

believe me, we don't want this, we have no choice, just like all other 3rd countries, cheap products, cheap minerals, cheap men and women, all running to the US to be exchanged for dollars

Because it is not $120 of raw material...

Yes, private shipping is perfectly fine. This is not a shipping embargo. USPS is just not taking packages. Letters and flat rate will continue to be processed.

If the basis of this move is that the USPS haven't figured out how to collect the tariffs on imports from China you would expect other couriers to be implementing the same measures very soon.

For $$$$$

Indeed you can. This only affects the heavily subsidized usps shipping process. If your r&d cannot afford fedex you shouldn’t be doing r&d.

For all the supposed panic and importance of this process, the poster didn’t do even a google search of this issue

Should be minimal disruption; when someone in China wanted to send me a package, they used DHL anyway.

Let's do it via New Zealand, it's $600 plus you wait about 6 months.

And forgo the revenue? Or, do the other carriers do a better job of meeting the imposts?

> The administration said the emergency order is part of its strategy to stop the illegal shipment of fentanyl and precursor chemicals into the United States."

Lol said out of their mouth while he was pardoning the head of the Silk Road underground/darkweb drug distribution organization to pump his crypto.

I don't know if China is fucked, but this reminded me of a map going around showing who in Latin America is trading more with: US or China [1]. In 2000, for everyone, it was the US. By 2023, for most it was China.

And one of the only hold-outs in South America is Colombia - a country Trump has already had a fight with. And with Trump's erratic tariff policies, I would imagine this trend would continue or accelerate.

[1] There's a few versions. here's one: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1ibunc1/latin_amer...

China has a lot going for it. The right investments in green energy and EVs is maturing now, allowing them dominate basically 75% of the world market for energy production and vehicles (without local competitors). They are also making investments right now in AI and robotics that are already beginning to pay off. The US as a market doesn’t mean much to China anymore, and Trump’s aggressive treatment of enemies and allies alike are bound to push more countries into China’s corner.

Trump is basically dismantling the world-leading US’s influence and handing it over to China on a silver platter.

I doubt you were using USPS before for those, so your company shouldn’t be affected unless this affects private shipping companies as well.

I would say so, but there are options right? FedEx? DHL?

Well if my DHL shipment from shenzhen gets blocked, I'll let you know.

I'm guessing Aliexpress choice fills up entire shipping containers shipping them to contractors on the ports. Once inside the US it's simply a matter of relabeling packages with a USPS sticker.

If Wal-Mart, e.g., can no longer import containers from China, well, Wal-mart would be fucked long faster than Aliexpress.

> We literally don't make much most of this stuff in the US

Not said often enough is that we DONT WANT to make much of this stuff in the US.

People seriously don’t get how remarkable it is that the U.S. is able to get other countries to send them actual usable stuff in return for pieces of paper that the U.S. prints. And how much richer this makes Americans.

I don’t believe the U.S. should be fully free market. Clearly it went too far away from industrialization to the point that the U.S. was reliant on China for critical stuff and has lost the capacity to scale if it needs to. The CHIPS act was the first tiny step towards changing this.

But these actions and the industries targeted needed to be strategic and not random.

"This country is so painfully stupid."

Not all of the country is stupid, a lot of us didn't vote for the idiot who is causing all this lunacy. Unfortunately, not enough of us.

The other issue is American quality has gone down the tank. 10-15 years ago I’d look for American quality over Chinese, but nowadays I prefer the Chinese manufacturer almost 100% of the time. Not always the case but anecdotally chinas quality has gotten better while American stuff has gotten worse.

Admittedly I’ve not looked past the linked page, but does this stop direct importing via other means? If not, and it holds, I’d expect to quickly see a bunch of US-based importers pop up very quickly just to resell onto the usual channels.

> This alone is probably going to cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year.

This is a temporary hold while they figure out what’s going on.

They’re not announcing that shipments from China are over for the year.

> by an American company ... > cost me about 1000$ to 2000$ per year.

they sponsored 2025, they collect the benefits, and peons pay.

Bezos donations to Trump are taking money right out of our pockets and putting it in his.

Or it's going to save you a ton because you are not spending money on frivolous shit.

I wouldn't even mind paying extra for the Amazon return policy, but I hate the dozens of listings for the same product.

All those cargo planes gotta go back, worth filling them up with stuff.

Ordered a bunch of server ram and parts. Most are sold by a Chinese company but the point of origin is either Ontario or California

Yep. We ship in little bits and bobs from China constantly to keep our enormous manufacturing center running here in the USA. This is going to be horrible for us.

There are a few channels on YouTube where someone's tasked with fixing a laptop or some small electronic thing. They pull it open, find some tiny little circuit that won't go, dissolve the solder, and put a new tiny little circuit in to save a perfectly good device from the landfill.

I hope they can still afford their tiny little circuits and tiny little solder dissolving things with more expensive shipping.

I don’t think cocaine comes from China

Yes

[dead]