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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,
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!”
I don't know man. As an American worker making minimum wage, I'm rather excited about the lower cost of imported communication satellites.
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
Safe to assume that we'll see nothing and the corporations will rake in the savings.
Are you saying that my iPhone and Mac aren't made in the USA??????
Those are consumer devices that are nowhere near the level of a MRI machine - that is made in the USA, or at least most of it.
Apple, Microsoft and others are consumer commodity device and software makers.
But what kills me about these trade deals is that they benefit the multinationals. They now can arbitrage worker pay, import workers, etc ... and lower their costs, but yet increase their markets and keep prices the same.
If anyone thinks that "Comparative Advantage" exists in the 21st century, you need to get with the times. Those high tech whatevers have parts, design, assembly done all over the World. And it doesn't matter what industry it is. Your Toyota Camry is more American than the F-35.
The only comparative advantage any country has to offer is who has the cheapest and most educated workers.
Spiral to the bottom.
And the owners - the folks with capital - will be the winners.
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...
Yeah, now I can afford to buy 0.0000002% of a communications satellite instead of 0.0000001%. Yippee!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
And the owners - the folks with capital - will be the winners.
Capital - such as 401k - is not enough. It has to be in the billions to get those backroom deals.
Yup, that's my feeling exactly. For consumer/SOHO products, stores will never pass on the savings that this would bring, instead will just be raking in more cash.
However at the enterprise level I could see prices drop in accordance to this.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
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.
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.