[HN Gopher] Tariffs Are Proving 'Big Headache' for Tech Giants, ...
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Tariffs Are Proving 'Big Headache' for Tech Giants, Says Foxconn
Author : m463
Score : 40 points
Date : 2025-03-14 20:20 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Maybe tech giants shouldn't have been so quick to trip over
| themselves to kiss the ring
| wenwolf wrote:
| I like even less how they use slander lawsuit settlements to
| achieve bribes. I imagine it would be hard for anyone else who
| would have to counter evidence that they raped their ex-wife to
| sue people because more recent sex crimes were not rapes.
|
| I can't imagine someone as rich as Bezos doesn't have expensive
| advisors who have told him the patterns suggest that his best
| move for his businesses is to at least fake that he can get in
| a testosterone war with Trump through his paper.. So the likely
| explanations for why he hasn't that I can think of are not
| kind.
| skybrian wrote:
| Maybe the tariff should be a separate line item, like sales tax?
| wenwolf wrote:
| Sounds like airline bills.. I don't really see how that has
| worked out for them.
| daveguy wrote:
| At least you specifically see what each charge is costing
| you.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Only at the last second of the purchase, when you're
| already mentally commited to buy at a lower previously
| advertised price
| mastax wrote:
| That's how it is at DigiKey and some other B2B focused
| distributors.
| sourtrident wrote:
| It's wild - tariffs meant to shield U.S. interests end up giving
| Apple and Foxconn headaches, shifting their entire strategy.
| Reminds me of closing one door only to notice everyone's sneaking
| in through the window. Protectionism might feel good, but tech
| always finds another route around.
| brookst wrote:
| I'm skeptical the tariffs were mean to shield US interests
| rather than just being intended to do exactly what they're
| achieving: isolating the US by driving investment and allies
| away, while contributing to a recession where oligarchs can
| further consolidate power and wealth.
|
| If you look at them as an attack on the US, everything makes a
| lot more sense.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Agreed, it's exactly what I'd do if I wanted the US to
| withdraw from global relevance.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| This is the correct way of thinking about it. The tariffs
| aren't meant to drive economic growth, they are meant to tank
| the economy and drive a wedge between the US and allies. The
| ultimate goal is to start a recession and an extra bonus goal
| would be to get US army bases in Europe shut down. That would
| make Putin extra happy.
| tempodox wrote:
| Yep, when Trump is through America will lie in ruins.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > Isolating the US by driving investment and allies away
|
| Foreign government's have an easy solution to solve the
| problem.
|
| Don't unfairly advantage your goods and services against
| American products and we won't do the same. Free trade
| shouldn't mean "Free trade for one side". Free trade should
| be contingent on reciprocity, both in terms of social and
| economic alignment.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Trump signed the trade deal with Canada in his first term.
| Now he's calling it unfair.
|
| Trump stated that the Canadian tariffs were a reaction to
| fentanyl crossing the Canadian border into the US.
|
| That has nothing to do with trade fairness or Canadian
| protectionism.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| ...as mediated by individual buyers and sellers deciding
| whether they'll pay a price based on the quality of the
| goods. Not based on some kind of dick waving contest that's
| happening in the corridors of power.
|
| By now it's clear that "fair" in this administration is
| defined by whoever is the biggest bully in the room, so
|
| > unfairly advantage your goods and services against
| American products
|
| is just a fancy way to say: "let us push you around."
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| I think the idea is definitely to trigger a recession, but I
| doubt they care about "allies"; this crowd loved the zero-
| interest rate days. A strong enough recession should bring
| those back without the drama of the president forcing the fed
| chief to do so through coercion.
| jonplackett wrote:
| They don't really want to collect tariff $. They want to force
| production in the US, which the article says is what they are
| going to do. That's not a window being jumped through, that's
| the intent. Or am I missing something here?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| No, you're not missing anything. That's the intent.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Is there actually an equitable plan for that? Because
| everyone I turn around a raid is on then off then on then
| off.
| tzs wrote:
| But Trump is also saying that he wants to get rid of income
| taxes and replace them with tariffs. That suggests that they
| do want to actually collect tariff dollars long term.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > They don't really want to collect tariff $. [...] Or am I
| missing something here?
|
| You're missing that Trump and apparatchiks have repeatedly
| stated they want to collect so so many billions of dollars
| from tariffs that it _replaces_ Federal Income Tax. [0]
|
| Do they _really_ want that in their souls? With the benefit
| of the past few years, I say the question itself is a
| mistake.
|
| Hanlon's Razor [0] fails on pathological inputs, certain
| flavors of bullshit cause it to time out, and the result
| wouldn't be of any practical use. It's simply inseperable
| malcompetence.
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/economy/trump-abolish-
| irs/ind...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
| unavoidable wrote:
| You have to look past the stated intention. It's quite clear
| by logical deduction that it cannot be the stated purpose.
|
| If the policy is intended to bring back US manufacturing, it
| would not be haphazardly implemented where the
| rates/industries/countries affected change by the hour. The
| best example are auto tariffs and steel/aluminum tariffs,
| which are going to absolutely destroy US auto manufacturing
| (where do we think the steel and aluminum used in cars are
| coming from?). An actual "reshoring" policy would be (1)
| targeted and (2) scheduled well in advance. So it obviously
| isn't that.
|
| It also can't be part of a drug policy, since whatever Trump
| is saying about Canada is clearly false (Canada accounts for
| less than 1% of illicit fentanyl trade and is a net
| _importer_ of illegal drugs and guns _from_ the US), thus no
| policy can really impact this trade.
|
| It also clearly can't be part of an energy policy, since US
| refineries are designed to accept a huge amount of Canadian
| and South American heavy crude (very little of which is
| produced in the US), so the oil tariffs can't possibly
| "onshore" more production of heavy crude.
|
| The long-held theory by some that he's wrecking the economy
| for insider trading also doesn't make sense, because his
| favoured allies like Musk are losing tons of money right now,
| and an "insider trading" strategy would be much more
| regularly spaced rather than changing by-the-hour.
|
| That leaves, by deduction, only a few possibilities:
|
| * Trump really is intentionally wrecking the economy, for
| known or unknown reasons:
|
| * He's wrecking the economy by instruction from a foreign
| agent (e.g. Putin - certainly indirect evidence exists)
|
| * He's wrecking the economy because his donors told him to
| (e.g. Musk, other billionaires - unlikely because why would
| they want that? They would rather have the stock market go
| straight up, right?)
|
| * He's wrecking the economy so that his "friends" can trade
| on the market with insider information (see above - seems
| unlikely based on the pattern)
|
| * He's wrecking the economy so that his "friends" can buy
| things cheaply (would have been plausible but for the
| widespread collateral damage he's causing)
|
| * Trump actually genuinely believes in tariffs (he's a
| product of the 80s after all)
|
| * Trump actually genuinely hates Mexico, Canada, Europe, and
| China (seems plausible based on his personality and that of
| his political base)
|
| * Trump really has no idea what he's doing (judge for
| yourself)
| harmmonica wrote:
| https://archive.is/rNixb
| skylurk wrote:
| Offshoring to stable countries is looking really smart now.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Exactly. The US has revealed itself to be prone to wild swings
| of policy, which will not be a lesson soon forgotten by prior
| trade allies.
|
| Even if sanity and democracy are brought back by a future
| adminstration, the US public have proven they can't be trusted
| not to vote in another clone of their current dictator. DJT Jnr
| and Barron will probably have a shot at the title in the not
| too distant future to maintain some kind of North Korean-like
| dynasty.
|
| There's enough of an undercurrent of overconfident, no-
| consequence, chest thumping "individuality and independence" in
| the US that, unless complete ruination occurs this time around,
| they'll vote for having another bash at complete ruination.
|
| Good trade relations is what keeps the trust and respect for
| the laws of the US in place in other developed countries.
| Copyright for example. If the US isn't a reliable trade partner
| then their power to influence copyright laws around the world
| would rapidly diminish, which Disney wouldn't be happy with.
| (I'm sure there are other examples of this, but international
| US copyright Law is one I'm vaguely familiar with. Use of the
| US Dollar for trade is another possible avenue for decline of
| US global influence).
|
| Yes, the US could be self sufficient to keep it's entire
| population alive and well, but not with the lifestyles to which
| many of them have become accustomed.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The US doesn't need to prove to the world that a bad
| president will never be elected again, which as you say is
| probably impossible and definitely false. What the US can do
| to rejoin the world in something akin to its former capacity
| is to walk back the extreme levels of authority granted to an
| individual who changes every four years (why is the executive
| able to change tariff levels every day?) in a way that
| relatively elevates rule of law and deliberative,
| compromising decision making.
| unavoidable wrote:
| As an outsider, it certainly seems like the US is entirely
| incapable of doing that in the foreseeable future.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'm hoping that the Democrats (and sympathetic Republicans)
| started working on a plan for this a few weeks ago. It
| needs to be comprehensive, and it needs to deal with both
| houses being majority single party, and deal with the
| ability for a president to select appointees to the
| powerful roles that are now filled with Trump catspaws.
|
| They also need to fix their voting rules and
| gerrymandering.
|
| I hope.
| standardUser wrote:
| Everyone hates tariffs because everyone hates taxes. If a
| government uses protectionism for a specific policy goal, like
| developing a domestic auto industry, that can be very effective
| and we've seen that work lots of times in lots of countries. The
| US may have recently managed to achieve this with microchip
| production.
|
| But when tariffs are applied broadly we all pay more in taxes.
| And it's worse than a more familiar increase in sales or income
| tax because it can absolutely wreck supply chains.
| unavoidable wrote:
| If tariffs work at all (which is doubtful), they're supposed to
| be part of an overarching plan with a long-term strategy in
| coordination with industry so that they can actually invest in
| creating new manufacturing. It certainly isn't going to work
| when tariffs are going on-off-on-off-25%-200%-10%-off-on-
| sometimes-off-on again. How in the world is _anyone_, American
| or otherwise, supposed to plan around this?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Also, they shouldn't be part of 4-front trade war against the
| country's biggest partners comprising >50% of all trade.
|
| "Do something or we'll trade with somebody else" is not a
| credible threat if they know you've already pissed off
| everybody else.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| The US is the world's largest domestic economy. Trade with
| all nations around the world is 24% of the USA's GDP. You
| could shut it all down and the country would probably enter
| a mild recession while the rest of the world would face
| complete economic collapse. For example, 67% of Canada's
| GDP is reliant on the United States in some way.
|
| The US has an insane amount of leverage. Leaders in Canada,
| Europe, etc talk a big game but then ultimately talk to an
| economist and realize they have to come to the table.
| That's why these leaders keep announcing things and then
| walking them back.
| unavoidable wrote:
| Removing 24% of GDP is not just a "mild recession",
| leaving aside all the interconnected parts of the economy
| that would immediately be destroyed.
| CPLX wrote:
| > If tariffs work at all (which is doubtful)
|
| Of course they work. China has used them to go from people
| living in huts to the high tech manufacturing center of the
| world.
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| Protectionism only works in combination with other
| measures. If you indiscriminately shield domestic
| enterprise from competition, you just get less competition
| and nothing else. Which is usually not enough.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Chip on shoring may lose its subsidy:
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/trump-wants-kill-527-bill...
| orwin wrote:
| Tariffs are little better than VAT/sales taxes as taxes imho
| (I'd rather have more progressive taxes like LVT, inheritance,
| wealth or at worse income), but in most countries, VAT is set
| extremely low on essential products like food. Setting global
| tariffs is idiotic. At least let the food and AG products free.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Brazil and India have both successfully forced Apple to move
| production onto their soil using tarrifs in the past.
|
| If the object is to bring in local manufacturing jobs, it's
| hard to claim that tarrifs can not be successful.
|
| However, you can naturally expect vocal opposition from
| companies that want to avoid higher labor costs.
|
| In the case of India, it's worked out very well as a proof of
| concept now that Apple has decided to reduce their reliance on
| China.
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