Tariffs Are Proving 'Big Headache' For Tech Giants, Says Foxconn (ft.com)
- Reference: 0176714291
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/03/14/146202/tariffs-are-proving-big-headache-for-tech-giants-says-foxconn
- Source link: https://on.ft.com/3DUJhem
> "The issue of tariffs is something that is giving the CEOs of our customers a big headache now," chief executive Young Liu told investors on an earnings call. "Judging by the attitude and the approach we see the US government taking towards tariffs, it is very, very hard to predict how things will develop over the next year. So we can only concentrate on doing well what we can control."
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> Liu said the company's customers were "one after another" hatching plans for co-operating with Foxconn on manufacturing in the US. He declined to give details as those plans were not yet finalised, but said there should be "more and more" manufacturing in the US.
[1] https://on.ft.com/3DUJhem
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And the screws that hold these things together? And the nails, sheet rock, etc. that build the houses their employees live in? What about the components that run the restaurants they dine in? I can go on, but that's not needed.
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> What would happen if web 2.0 was being propped up by swarms of fake accounts?
Interesting question. I supposed those fake accounts would post offtopic messages about something other than tariffs, in a discussion about the impact of tariffs.
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When folks talk about trade wars they talk about the difference forms of leverage that nations have on each other because of the resources they control or generate. The US throws a tariff on Canadian cars so they stop buying our liquor. But no one wants to talk about this one Chinese made resource that big tech absolutely requires: metrics
It's not unrelated. America is a bad position and China has a lot more leverage over American tech platforms than their management will admit because they can't possibly
They had months to stockpile (Score:2)
Not sure why they failed to prepare.
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Not sure why they voted for this. If it wasn't effecting the rest of us, I'd be laughing my ass off at these idiot CEOs that voted for him thinking he was blustering when the self-professed Tariff Guy kept saying he wanted to put tariffs on everything, and then once empowered to do so, starts tariffing everything.
"But I didn't think he'd do it! I thought it was just 'negotiating' or 'trolling'..."
Fuck you. No shortage of information showing he would, including THE LAST TIME HE WAS IN OFFICE AND FUCKED AR
foxconn should of built that Wisconsin plant! (Score:2)
foxconn should of built that Wisconsin plant!
There will be turmoil, but only for a bit (Score:3)
Things will eventually settle. Products will be made elsewhere. You may have to hold onto your iphone for *gasp* another year. That slave labor made band shirt from china might cost $5 more.
The point is, we need to level the playing field.
If they charge a tariff, so will we. Reciprocal. Simple. If country x drops their tariffs on us to 0, we will drop it to 0 and have true free trade. Up to them. The move is in their court.
I really don't see how this is a hard concept for people to grasp.
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Yes, let's show those countries that are "ripping us off" [citation needed] by taxing OURSELVES.
Keep sucking down that flavor-aid, bruh.
for co-operating with Foxconn on manufacturing in (Score:2)
the US, would that be in the plant they built last time Trump was president ... oh wait ...
Manufacturing (Score:2)
> but said there should be "more and more" manufacturing in the US.
Which was exactly the goal of the tariffs.
Why are iPhones made in China? (Score:2)
I don't see how manufacturing iPhone, a luxury item, in China benefits anyone in US other than Apple shareholders.
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Who said they made soley in China? You mean "assembly". Many parts in a phone from various parts of the world. The iphone line is being diversified to be assembled in India and Vietnam. The inbound macbook air now is assembled in Vietnam.
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You mean "solely".
Now give me my Funny mod.
On the story, the real problem is that pure profit maximization creates insane and perverse motivations. Covering costs is not sufficient. Doing honest work to make an honest living has become something of a sad joke. (But not worth a Funny mod point.) If the only objective is to squeeze out the biggest possible number for the profit, then anything that confuses the calculations becomes the enemy of profit maximization--and diddling around with random taxes and ta
Re: Why are iPhones made in China? (Score:2)
For the same reason theyâ(TM)re designed in the US and most Chinese-designed phones are terrible knockoffs. Workforce specialization isnâ(TM)t a bad thing. US manufacturing being so good is pure survivorship bias. If a company was good enough at doing their thing to keep making money here, then their product must be pretty great and/or require some specialized knowledge os skill American workers have. The assumption thatâ" economics asideâ" weâ(TM)re somehow fundamentally more compe
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Comparative advantage was what we taught 40 years ago. I don't think Donny understands gains from trades or opportunity costs.
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Considering the enormous profit margin from an iPhone and that Apple, Samsung and the lot keep jacking up prices, I don't see any benefit to customers. Meanwhile, if companies start manufacturing in the US, wages are higher and the company can take a hit in their enormous profit margin and more people can afford their product. Henry Ford understood this and that's why you likley have a car in your driveway. Prior to Ford, cars were a luxury item.
Re: Why are iPhones made in China? (Score:2)
You do realize that these tariffs affect things other than phones right? You donâ(TM)t see how these rules applied broadly could possibly affect anything other than corporate profits? Beyond that, do you REALLY think corporations, rather than the people they patronize corporations, are going to be losing most here?
National sales tax (Score:2)
Trump's goal isn't to have a trade war it's to create a national sales tax that lets him get his billionaire tax cuts through a tight Congress.
He doesn't quite have the votes to push those tax cuts through the house without offsetting them so he's trying to do massive spending cuts but he can't touch the big stuff like Medicare or Medicaid. So he's trying to create a national sales tax using tariffs. Basically shifting the tax burden of himself and his ultra rich buddies onto you and me
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> Walk around your home and list things NOT made in China.
How is that not a huge problem in need of solving?
The next hot war going to be fought with drone swarms. Do you think China going to continue supplying US in such scenario?
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It is a problem worth solving. The problem is with the current proposed solution as it seems to be designed to maximized damage to the American economy. A slow phase in of tariffs against China would make infinitely more sense as it would allow time for production to move to the US (or at least less objectionable countries) and supply chains to reorient before the tariffs become too big a deal. Instead everything has to be done right this second and we can see how well that's panning out in the stock market
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> How is that not a huge problem in need of solving?
You'll naively continue to say that until it's your job being offshored. Then you'll get it.
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A large portion of what I own is not made in China. That's because I search out products not made there. Unfortunately, there are still some items which are only made there such as sunglasses and gloves.
Interesting side note, I was looking for a light for my kitchen and found the same manufacturer made the exact same light in Cambodia and China. Guess which one I'll purchase?
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Because it's cheaper paying Asian wages to do a given amount of work and the international transportation costs than it is paying US wages and national distribution costs. It benefits everyone buying an Apple (or whatever - Apple is far from the only US vendor doing this) to the tune of however many dollars that equates to being taken off the street price.
You want the jobs that come from US-based manufacturing, then you're either going to have to pay more goods in order to cover the wages to make that f
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International transportation costs are subsidized by US taxpayers by US Navy providing security to non-US flagged ships. Why would US taxpayers subsidize Asian manufacturing this way?
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Because of the two-step voting system and the fact that only the ultra-rich can afford to run a successful election campaign, your politicians don't see how anyone in the US other than shareholders matter.
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It benefits everyone who wants to buy it, because:
a) as the Tim Cook himself said a few years ago, the iphone cannot be manufactured in the US, so it would probably be unavailable to buy at all, but even if it was somehow manufactured in some quantity,
b) it would be a lot cheaper to produce in China, so the people who buy it benefit from the lower price
It also benefits the US, because it frees resources that can be used more productively than cobbling iphones at a higher price.
Basic economics 101/2, surpris
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> I don't see how manufacturing iPhone, a luxury item, in China benefits anyone in US other than Apple shareholders.
Well, lower manufacturing costs impact final consumer prices. I'm not sure Americans will be happy paying significantly more for their iPhones. Higher prices, either via US manufacturing or tariffs, will certainly lower unit sales and likely total revenue. And with Apple being such a stock market behemoth, a drop in AAPL will have additional impacts on the US economy.
Part of the manufacturing cost is labor, which is still cheaper in China compared to the US, even though Chinese labor costs have risen. H