High tariffs become 'real' with our first $36K bill

That’s a really good point that makes this so much worse.

It’s not just that I may not be able to continue some projects, but that I may not be able to continue pushing the boundaries of my knowledge and experience as I learn more.

Thinking about this in terms of younger aspiring builders, this will stagnate the technical growth of a generation.

I've been "stockpiling" car parts for years for various maintenance I need to do... I guess I should get to doing that actual maintenance but those strut springs still scare me.

When covid hit, I def sold a lot of junk that I had sitting around for years

China has the upper hand and the US is being run by morons. With the US cutting itself off from the largest supplier of electronics while simultaneously destroying the basic research infrastructure that keeps America on the bleeding edge you can expect a brain drain towards Europe and Asia. The damage from this administration will last generations.

Not sure why people keep insisting that goods from China are “cheap,” which always seems to carry a negative connotation when in reality, “cheap” is exactly what we seem to want as consumers in wealthier western countries.

And in many cases, these products are neither cheap nor expensive, they’re simply the only option, because no one else in the world manufactures them. So, what exactly are we comparing them to? And if the assumption is that producing the same goods in Europe or the US would be more expensive then that’s likely true but only because we still expect to earn a living wage, even in factory jobs

I think the total reliance is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed.

I still think this approach to addressing that issue is complete madness.

Not only is there no coherent plan for how that reliance will be reduced, but we’ve now crippled ourselves in the meantime.

The USA could bring manufacturing back, but not with tariffs.

They can't tell businesses "Look, we've dramatically increased your cost of doing business, made your products more expensive (which will likely lead to lower sales) and we're forcing you to spend extra capital by paying tariffs on your products... Now all you need to do is come up with billions of dollars to build the factories that build your product and eat the high costs for the 5 - 10 years it will take to build the factories. We don't care if you're a small business that only sells $1M of product a year, if you want to reduce your costs, you need to build the factories."

Of course, the question is whether Americans really want those factory jobs -- do parents aspire to have their children work in a factory assembling iPhones? There's only so many Robot Technician jobs to go around (despite the promise of unlimited high paid technician jobs, for the forseable future there will be plenty of menial factory jobs)

That's a valid argument, but a 125% tariff with basically zero notice - on manufacturing and shipping timelines - is not the solution.

Global trade is goodness, not madness.

The only way for China to lose influence in this fight is by playing ball. They can simply continue to trade with the rest of the world and be totally fine when it is US consumers paying the bill.

I get what you are saying, but the U.S. BUYS goods, because we are "too rich" to make them. We SELL services, because other countries are "too poor" to offer them.

When this administration focuses solely on one side of that (Goods vs Services), they miss the forest for the trees. I'm not saying we shouldn't bring back manufacturing, because we should, but we can't pretend that we get the short end of the stick in this trade partnership.

China makes the cheap shit that isn't economical here, and the only way to make it economical here is to pay a tax on the cheap shit we want if it isn't made here, but the crazy thing is we could do a 400% tariff on Chinese imports, and it is still too expensive to buy American for most goods. Not even getting to the point that we don't have the infrastructure here because that also costs money, which would rise the price for American goods even higher.

Does Bill Gates mow his own lawn? No!

Does Donald Trump grill his own Big Mac? No!

Because when you hit a certain "wealth bracket" you stop doing things that are below that and hire them out. We hired China because we were too rich.

That's a goofy argument because manufacturing did not start to be offshored until AFTER tariffs were removed.

Chart: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Average_...

I wonder whether you realize that the US is currently second in manufacturing capacity and far ahead of the country (Japan) in third place. (I'm not defending Trump's tariffs.)

The situation in electronics manufacturing specifically I will concede is concerning.

With what we know now, or going back in time and making different decisions than what were made? offshoring isn't necessarily the wrong decision, but sending it all to one country with hostile form of government to your own does seem like a bad move. China just happened to be smart enough to develop in this way where Mexico or other Latin American countries did not, nor did other Asian countries. They are all now trying to play catch up, but only after China became THE place for all of this manufacturing.

There is no overnight solve at this point. But a solution would be working to help countries with more friendly government to your own to build up their manufacturing with the promise of guaranteed business to help prop it up by moving away from the hostile government.

mug = face

The clearer wording is probably:

>Then we were surprised when those same companies decided that they don't need us any more.

My point is less about where the money goes and more about not subsidizing cheap Chinese shipping.

I don't think I should be able to order a little plastic trinket for $10 shipped direct from China, when just shipping the same thing inside the US costs $10+!

This made me wonder what the tariffs will do to private jets and if the 100% write off for them just includes everything or if there is more nuance there.

What do market models say about what happens as more and more of the "pie" shifts toward people and entities whose only demand is investments, not (a meaningful amount, proportionately, of) consumer goods or non-financial services for ordinary human wants and needs?

It's gotta be... bad, right? It seems like it'd be bad.

I'd argue market patterns have been confusing since the end of the mortgage crisis.

> too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery

What?

I have some puts on the S&P 500 but largely staying away due to volatility.

When the MBAs of all the large corps spend decades reworking supply chains to rely on overseas suppliers, you shouldn't be surprised when you have no domestic alternatives when you suddenly pull the rug out.

None of this is by accident, of course, but it just seems predictably short-sighted, and I don't buy any of the 4d chess nonsense that some supporters are suggesting. And now the world has to bear the consequences of a misguided and overconfident policy.

Where are you getting PCBs assembled in the USA at small volume?

They said "so many" meaning a subset, and there are tariffs on other countries.

'because the US Government implemented dramatic new rulings with literally no plan/support for previously thriving American small businesses.'

Not saying that is right or wrong but finish the sentence.

> People will buy it if it's a necessary item.

What do you call necessary? What about non-necessary items? What about IP that improves manufacturing efficiency by 5% in some process? Better battery tech? Better UI? Better chips? Better sensors? In some cases the answer is yes, in some cases the answer is no. If the answer is yes then the US pays 125% more for that item, if the answer is no then the US has worse efficiency, worse prices, worse technologies.

You talk in absolute which makes me feel like you're missing all the nuances at play.

It's the buyers in the other countries who get the "125%" permanent advantage, not the sellers. Sure, it doesn't affect you if you're TCL making flat-panel displays. It affects you if you're buying flat-panel displays to incorporate into your product, by making your product a lot more expensive.

I wouldn't call it logical for the US to lose all the IP protections they benefit from. But I doubt the international community would mind if suddenly American IP became free after the US withdrew itself from international trade.

I guess then might try to buy the IP

[dead]

I feel like a broken record, but it makes perfect sense if you ask yourself, what would Putin want?

Putin would love the US government destroying large portions of its economy for no discernible gain. I think Putin probably encouraged Trump by telling him all the idiotic things he keeps repeating like how the trade deficit shows the US is getting ripped off. Or that huge tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the US. Or that countries would be lining up to make a deal.

But no actual sane person can explain the end game because anyone with even a basic understanding of economics and trade knows that none of those things are or were ever true.

I watched the UK/US press conference this morning. Lutnick is infuriating. Anything remotely resembling an explanation or justification for 'tariffs' devolves in to obsequeous praise of how great Trump is. It's as if they can't function for an hour or two without overtly proclaiming the wonder of Trump.

"Jamison and I working together couldn't have put this deal together in 3 years, but President Trump was able to pull this off in less than 45 days!" (paraphrasing but IIRC it was pretty close).

I think the plan is to consolidate power at any cost. If people are too broke and scared to resist, it's a win for them. The claims that tariffs will help the economy or kidnapping citizens and judges will protect national security, is just a nonsense excuse.

I think this because the right wing think tanks published that Project 2025 plan and it's clearly being followed even though Trump lied and said he wasn't aware of it

If a business in France uses tech X imported from China, and a competing US business uses the same tech X imported from China but has to pay 145% more than the French company, is that not an advantage they have over the US company?

>We're not increasing our prices until those stocks run out and we have to reorder - we don't want to screw the community over.

That's a nice thing to do, but it might be more sustainable to increase the cost some now, so that you don't have to increase it as much to cover the tariffs in the future.

> Outside of the US, most consumers expect to have to pay import fees as a separate line item.

Only if you buy from a foreign store directly which is relatively niche. It's much more common for an importer to pay the duties and then put the product in local stores.

Part of what I'm referencing is that you don't know how much "lose some customers" even is. And if you buy stock and pay the tariffs, you might have stock that almost nobody wants...

Something this administration considers a 'hostile and political move'?

If you're small enough I guess you might get a way with it, if you're big enough you'll be threatened into compliance.

Either way the US customers and the rest of the world lose, everyone is a little poorer because of these tariffs.

And if you're big enough and you do that, you get bullied into submission by the White House. It's really hard to look at this administration's economic policies and not wonder whether there is deliberate sabotage going on. The best case scenario is these people are woefully uninformed and incompetent. These tariffs will hurt consumers, destroy small businesses, and simultaneously have the potential to enrich the largest players in the market. This never would have happened if our population was better educated and particularly more financially literate.

I think it is a good choice to be transparent. I 100% agree with that. But I don't know that it really changes the "I'm out" dynamic or risk that they won't just show up again.

Also if there's a lot of "I'm out" you just bought a lot of stuff nobody wants to pay anything near the cost of.

Yeah, I don't know why any business with the capacity wouldn't be being explicit about this. If you're going to get hate, might as well try to point the hate in the right direction. It makes absolutely no sense to fall on that particular sword.

It's 42 packages with a total weight of 445kg, we don't know how many items are within each package.

I agree, although fuel surcharge is totally expected and common in logistics land.

Consumers ... going to have to learn something new.

No assembly.