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Trillion-Dollar World Trade Deal Aims To Make IT Products Cheaper
itwbennett writes: A new (tentative) global trade agreement, struck on Friday at a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva, eliminates tariffs on more than 200 kinds of IT products, ranging from smartphones, routers, and ink cartridges to video game consoles and telecommunications satellites. A full list of products covered was published by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which called the ITA expansion 'great news for the American workers and businesses that design, manufacture, and export state-of-the-art technology and information products, ranging from MRI machines to semiconductors to video game consoles.' The deal covers $1.3 trillion worth of global trade, about 7 percent of total trade today. The deal has approval from 49 countries, and is waiting on just a handful more before it becomes official,
That certainly smells like BS.
That list has some very specific entries on it.
What would be useful to know is what the end-consumer could expect to see in terms of savings from this tariff removal (should it be passed on at retail).
And all the other countries that actually make those tech products.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Ha ha ha! Very funny!
Ah, okay, not necessarily you and me. This so the industry can shift inventory around a little easier.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Will those savings be passed to us, the consumers? Nope.
Here the parasitic "eletronics industry" (in quotes because we do not have a real electronics industry) managed to keep the barrier of 60% (minimum) of import taxes on any and every electronic product. And that when the customs or the post office do not simply steal it.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
You will see 49 trained seals performing, with more to come! And everyone knows the hard work it takes to feed a seal one more fish.
The one thing I've seen through the years is that if someone wants something, they get it. Computer hardware is at the top of that list. So we can dispense with the "good for everyone" litany. But lets ignore the obvious tax dodge and ramifactions. I wonder, "is computer hardware accessable to more people?"
For those of you who remember the 90s. That giant sucking sound is the last of our industry leaving the US.
So they drop the import tax on Widget, locally made Widgets had already been competing with that established cost, what do you think this is going to happen to the local Widget maker?
Yeah, this is good news for manufacturing centers that already scrape the barrel because they flip profit overseas, for them its a minor adjustment, for the local company holy shit, imports (your competitors) just got cheaper.
So... you FAIL
Nope, it just means that the US won't tax imports which are likely priced so low that it drives domestic companies to bankruptcy, similar to solar panels priced lower than the rare earth components a few years back.
It would be nice if a treaty to remove tariffs for US goods in China or other countries would be enacted, but when "free trade" is mentioned, it usually is just one way.
What about the non-tariff barriers? https://www.wto.org/english/tr...
That's where they sneak in the provisions about intellectual property rights, "market pricing," "investor-state dispute settlement"?
Is this like the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Are they going to settle disputes by private arbitrators, whose decisions can't be reviewed by courts or changes by national legislatures?
I doubt, free trade with non-free countries is beneficial to humanity. Though one can argue, that it makes such non-free countries more free, it is not at all evident, that that's what happened to China, for example.
Meanwhile, the US is gradually losing freedoms as there appear more and more things we aren't allowed to do or even say, and the list of places requiring identification is growing.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Did anybody leak the "IP Chapter" yet? I mean, that can't be a US-involved Trade Agreement without the Hollywood-mandated obligatory IP chapter, right?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
When has any of these 'free trade' agreements actually benefited workers? or even been about real liberalisation of trade laws?
This is just another 'agreement' made behind closed doors, by unelected apparatchiks, to implement policies that allow more redistribution of wealth to the rich, and to large corporations.
...anytime they say it's going to be "great news for American workers", you know it's going to be the exact opposite. More like, "great news for multinational conglomerates who couldn't care less about individual workers".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
$1.3 trillion! That's a lot of money! It's a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier every 30 hours, or about what the US borrowed every year just a few years ago zomfg that's alotta money!!!1!111
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't want cheaper, nobody does. We want better instead.
You know, a device that doesn't literally shatter when you drop it. Or doesn't get a scratch for every brush against your trousers, or a battery that actually lasts MORE than the warranty.
Because it seems to me, that without the law forcing them, the manufacturers are confusing device warranty with device lifespan. Before 2001, in my country, a term was coined, sounds a lot like "Chinoiserie" but with a different meaning, "Chinese POS" (antonym: German quality) because the items would look pretty and shiny, but fail after a short while, with no other use than the garbage dump.
With no idiots in power back then to force people into choosing one over the other, the Chinoiserie stayed in it's shitty corner for decades.
Slashdot has just enough of the old Slashdot in it for me to stick around, it's still the definitive tech site. I have to say however the latest sale/purchase has really disappointed me. Any and all stories of a controversial nature are not by default slanted to a pro-globalist narrative wording. It was incredibly obvious with gamer gate, the repeated beating it into my head I should feel guilty that more women don't even want my job, and now pro TPP (which basically includes SOPA and PIPA in the text) and related treaties disguised as trade agreements.
I'm all for less taxes in nearly every instance, but these treaties are incredibly dangerous.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Electronic widgets and their tariffs are not the problem with global trade. Severely protectionist tariffs and policies on agricultural commodities and large manufactured goods are the problem.
Free trade is like the free market: it's a complete fucking lie.
There is no free trade. Americans keep yowling about free trade, but when it comes down to it, Americans believe in a protectionist version of free trade.
When America stops having corn subsidies, or adheres to a single WTO ruling against them, we might start to believe you.
Until then, shut the fuck up you asshole. There is no fucking free trade. There is no fucking free market.
Moron.
You can look up the products and see which ones have US-sided tariffs that are being eliminated
For example, non-volatile memory
http://hts.usitc.gov/?query=85...
Switches and routers ...have no existing US tariffs, and we would benefit from other countries dropping their barriers to trade
http://hts.usitc.gov/?query=85...
However, stereoscopic microscopes enjoy a 5-7% US tariff, and will see competition
It will take a while to sort out, but this may work in our advantage
Wherever You Go, There You Are
I don't see why it wouldn't work to our advantage. The US has always been top notch in the tech sector, and hasn't depended on tariffs to do so. A lot of countries (especially ones in Europe) have tried using tariffs to try to counterbalance that, but it's never done anything other than make technology more expensive in those countries. If those trade barriers fall, then we'll see a LOT more money headed our way.
First to market or risk becoming obsolete is an incentive. So is, because it's there. Remind me why we play games again?
Not likely. Other nations such as china have implemented 'consumption tax', for all goods, which is then forgiven on locally produced goods.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which called the ITA expansion 'great news for the American workers and businesses that design, manufacture, and export state-of-the-art technology and information products, ranging from MRI machines to semiconductors to video game consoles.'"
Uh-huh. Right.
You know what would be even better news for US tech hardware exporters?
If they didn't have a huge boat anchor attached in the form of NSA built-in backdoors and vulnerabilities.
Really, if you're a foreign corporation that competes in any way with US corporations/interests/research, or any government/organization/individual that US TLAs could possibly even tangentially term "of interest", would you buy stuff from US makers/manufacturers despite what's been revealed publicly over the last 20 years to present concerning US TLA activity within the US tech manufacturing/exporting industries?
Particularly in light of the recent revelations of so many unlawful and/or unconstitutional programs and activities engaged in by US intelligence organizations courtesy of the courageous whistle-blower Edward Snowden, which keep revealing new programs that violate constitutional principles and prohibitions with every new dump from the trove.
US tech companies have to overcome all that (quite understandable and logical) mistrust (good luck!), and *then* compete against other corporations that don't have that perceived millstone around their necks.
This will not turn out well for the US tech industries that need/rely on exporting their goods, and with cheap imports flowing into the US, even those who were national/regional in nature will find themselves priced out of the market.
1. Mining/Drilling - Offshored
2. Steel mfg - Offshored
3. Heavy Industries/Factories - Offshored
4. Artificial politically-motivated limits on energy production and artificially-created increases in cost.
5. ...?
I'm not liking the direction this is trending.
If it roughly parallels past similar historical scenarios, it doesn't end well for anyone in the US (well, except those 'too big to starve'), neither Left nor Right, nor atheists, Christians, Muslims, or whatever "ism" or party you favor.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I don't see why it wouldn't work to our advantage. The US has always been top notch in the tech sector, and hasn't depended on tariffs to do so. A lot of countries (especially ones in Europe) have tried using tariffs to try to counterbalance that, but it's never done anything other than make technology more expensive in those countries. If those trade barriers fall, then we'll see a LOT more money headed our way.
People who understand quality pay for it, everyone else buys the rubbish that passes as merely a consumer item.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Where was this treaty visible to the public during negotiations?
This treaty may be horrible. But just like more well-known free-trade treaties, it seems like we are just now finding out about it, after it is too late to do anything to change it.
*THAT* is what has to change.