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US' Proposed China Tariffs Would Target Robotics, Satellites (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The U.S. Trade Representative has published the list of Chinese products that would be subject to its proposed tech tariffs, and there are a few clear themes. The move would hike the costs of about 1,300 products, including industrial robots, communication satellites, spacecraft and a slew of semiconductors.The aim, as before, is to punish China for allegedly goading American companies into transferring their patents and technology to Chinese firms for the sake of claiming economic superiority. The USTR claimed the proposed tariffs would stymie Chinese plans while "minimizing the impact" on the American economy. The tariffs are still subject to a 60-day notice process that would include public comments until May 11th and a public hearing on May 15th.
Fuck yeah!
Even those it's arguably unconstitutional, machine guns have been banned among the US citizenry for a very long time.
Also, last I checked, the US Government is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; so, the people do indeed need guns. The 2nd Amendment makes this very clear: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
In those days, "well regulated" meant "armed with equipment of regular and high quality", and "militia" still means "group of patriots".
Importing cheap semiconductors to the EU, designing and assembling my technology in Romania and then selling the finished product to the US could well be cheaper and more profitable than producing it in China and importing it directly from China to the US because the tariffs are going to even out the cents I have to pay the Romanians more? And all that without risking having my designs stolen so the Chinese could crank out cheap knockoffs?
On behalf of the EU, I wish to express my gratitude towards dear leader across the pond.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Instead, we damage ourselves continuously by taxing the hell out of US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture with income taxes that harm nearly every aspect of US production. We have individual income taxes and payroll taxes that make labor much more expensive than it should be, we have capital gains taxes that make investing more expensive, we have corporate income taxes that harm our businesses by making products more expensive, we have estate taxes that especially harm agriculture when family farms are taxed when the owner dies, we have gift taxes and alternative minimum taxes and these all just hurt everyone.
What we should do instead is to pass the FairTax. The FairTax completely repeals ALL Federal income taxes in the USA and replaces them with a retail sales tax on new goods and services - used items aren't taxed - and prevents taxing the poor by giving every legal resident of the USA a check from the gov't to pay for the FairTax on all their spending up to the poverty level - $230/month for a single person making $12K a year.
Untaxing US manufacturing, mining, and agriculture in this manner would put rocket engines on the economy, and further allowing citizens to set their level of taxation by deciding how much tax they want to pay by either buying or not buying taxed items. The FairTax is essentially a luxury tax, then, since it only taxes non-essential items - items purchased above the poverty level - so it really nails the big spenders (the rich) and gives a pass to the really poor and very frugal.
The FairTax would "Make America Great Again" by putting rocket engines on the economy, and untaxing our exports while greatly incentivizing both foreign and domestic manufacturing to come here or stay here. Jobs available would go up dramatically as would wages when the labor shortage hits.
The Fair Tax would be a winner for everyone in the USA, and a horror for foreign economic competitors.
We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!
When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!
And this folks, is what leadership has come to mean today.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's a stupid idea no matter how you try to disguise it.
The US has a trade imbalance with China... that means the US imports more from China than China does from the US. Therefore, quid pro quo... the US can deny China more revenue than China can deny the US.
Sure, the US can hurt ITSELF by denying ITSELF Chinese goods which the US ITSELF makes more expensive in the US through tariffs. However, with really no exceptions there are comparable trade partners that can offer the same good at either the same or very similar price point.
What is more, there really isn't anything China produces that has to come from China. They don't own any IP that anyone cares about. The only reason anyone does anything in China is mostly due to low labor costs which are less relevant now for two reasons. First, Chinese labor costs have been going up such that labor costs are often cheaper somewhere else if that is important. And second, the rise of automation is rendering the relevance of labor costs of that type... less relevant.
Will tariffs help US producers? Maybe. They can and they sometimes don't. It is complicated. There are countries with very high tariffs that have absolutely flat-lined manufacturing... which results in things being more expensive for consumers without any pay off in terms of domestic production. Then there are places where tariffs are hugely helpful to domestic production.
A big part of the controversy so far as I can see if that there is a myth about "free trade"... that it is "the american way" and that "it actually exists anywhere". Historically, the US Federal Government funded itself principally from tariffs. This didn't really stop until the Cold War when very generous trade deals were offered as an inducement for fence sitting nations to join the "first world". For reference, first world during the Cold War referred to any nation allied with the US. Second world referred to any nation allied with the Soviet Union. Third world referred to any nation not allied with either the US or Soviet Union. Regardless, "free trade" was a marketing term the US used to brand its trade deals. The US was branding everything it did as "free" something. Freedom fighters, Free World, Free Trade etc. US Free Trade doctrine was only created to put pressure on the Soviets and has really no purpose in the 21st century unless again applied to serve some kind of geopolitical agenda. Instead, the US is applying the concept mindlessly with no particular purpose. Its cited as "the american way" like its something essential to American values when any fool that looks at history can see when it came around and why. Second, ACTUAL free trade only exists domestically within certain nations and doesn't really exist in any international context and never did. Trade is conditional. The US doesn't have free trade with Mexico and Canada through NAFTA much less with anyone else. And neither does any other country.
China has higher tariffs on US goods into China than the US does on Chinese goods into the US... and that was before Trump or any of this current bullshit.
Restrictions are happening everywhere all the time for various reasons. Some of the restrictions are a matter of law and policy and some are a subtle consequence of process or relationship. The net effect either way is that goods don't flow freely. They're restricted and regulated and taxed and have quotas applied etc.
US goods when they go nearly anywhere are limited in some way. US goods to Japan for example sometimes ROT on the pier because the Japanese want to protect their domestic market by limiting US trade. Countries come up with all sorts of pretexts to do it. Health and safety is a popular one. Differing regulatory standards which are approved at time X and then suddenly are questioned at X+1 at the worst possible time fucking over who ever chanced the market.
As regards China specifically, their fast and loose treatment of trade agreements, business agreements, licensing, intellectual property... etc is well known at this point. We're due a big shift in trade relationships with
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Importing cheap semiconductors to the EU, designing and assembling my technology in Romania and then selling the finished product to the US could well be cheaper and more profitable than producing it in China and importing it directly from China to the US because the tariffs are going to even out the cents I have to pay the Romanians more? And all that without risking having my designs stolen so the Chinese could crank out cheap knockoffs?
On behalf of the EU, I wish to express my gratitude towards dear leader across the pond.
Don't discount the economic damage done by the cheap knockoff process - it's so common that it's become a meme. It's nigh impossible for anyone to make electronics in China any more, even small hobbyist designers (think Adafruit and Sparkfun) get their products copied and sold for pennies.
Then there's the direct theft of IP (trade secrets, business practices, and such) that the FBI estimates at $600B/year.
Then there's selling steel and aluminum at below-market prices until our domestic producers go out of business (at last count, we had one steel foundry left that was capable of making the steel plates needed for military hardware).
Then there's the lack of IP enforcement, so that lots of Chinese run pirated code and view bootleg media without paying for it.
Then there's "thousand grains of sand", where Chinese students and scientists (in the US) coming back to their country are encouraged to bring one or two small pieces of technological or scientific information.
Then there's keeping their currency artificially low, so that we always have a trade deficit with them (they end up getting more and more of our money).
China has consistently violated their trade agreement in every possible way, and has done so for decades.
We're *already* in a trade war, it's only just now that we're doing something about it.
Yes, let's be like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Marxist China, Pol Pot Cambodia. Let's take away everyone's ability to defend themselves from government overreach. Then we'll only have millions killed! Yay!
This is not about a "trade war". This is about China using economic warfare to destroy our manufacturing capability. This is not a "trade war", this is a maneuver in blatant economic warfare. If we have no steel or aluminum manufacturing, we have no control of our economy and we have no ability to sustain open warfare against a nation-state.
Consider WWII. While Russia supplied most of the manpower to defeat the Nazi armies, almost all of the manufacturing for the war effort was in the United States. The Chinese see this and have been paying the investment bankers quite handsomly to sell out our manufacturing capability.
You are retarded. Meet my friend the cruise missile launched from a naval destroyer 500 miles off the coast of your state.
Yet the Vietnamese and Afghanists suited fine despite being against those technologies..
Making things more-expensive by producing them domestically when it's cheaper to do so abroad always hurts the poor and middle-class by reducing their purchasing power (making them more-poor).
Let me introduce you to the difference between linear functions and curves.
Assume you eliminate one job at $40,000 per year, but make widgets cheaper by $.02.
If there are enough widget sales across the country, the aggregate savings can add up to much more than the $40,000 lost domestically. One person has to find a new job, but millions of dollars can be saved overall.
The problem is that "one person has to find a new job" isn't free. It puts stress on the job market, driving down salaries, and incrementally increases the chances of someone turning to crime and welfare.
For each case of producing something cheaper abroad, there's a corresponding *rise* in expenses associated by having an extra person out of work. The 2nd person has a higher social cost than the 1st person.
So there's a tradeoff. The first couple of people out of work is probably a net win for the country overall, but you quickly reach a point where domestic jobs are hard to get, and the curve becomes flat. When there are more people than there are jobs, the social cost greatly outweighs the financial benefit.
Being unable to find work hurts the poor much more than reducing their purchasing power.
You're assuming a linear relationship to a curved function.
According to your sig, you're running for office as a representative from Maryland.
Good on you, we need more smart people in congress!
Please be aware that most economics is based on measures of corporate profits that ignores the human condition. It's *entirely* possible to have a healthy economy, by those measures, up to the point where your country falls to civil war.
As a representative, please consider that the welfare of the people is paramount to the stability of the country. It does no good to have healthy businesses and a good looking economy if the people are miserable.
Thanks for harming US businesses. I notice there's not tariffs on the clothing you and Ivanka import from China... why is that?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
> The move would hike the costs of about 1,300 products, including industrial robots
So the solution to China taking all the jobs because of low labor costs is to increase the cost of robots? Yeah, that'll fix 'er.
China already retaliated and published a list of 106 articles, Soy, Corn, Beef, Orange juice...almost all the things that Trumps deplorables produce.
It will be fun to watch how the 'winning' will be going.
Tiger Blood!
Far from it. But he reminds me of the routine of a well known local comedy duo:
A: Are you so dumb or are you just faking it?
B: Why should I fake being dumb?
What is the non-dumb move that fixes the problem then?
Come on, tell us! If the president's move is so obviously dumb, what *should* we be doing to fix the litany of problems?
Your post implies that you're much smarter than him.
Don't hold back, tell us please!
That didnâ(TM)t stop the Vietcong. It hasnâ(TM)t stopped the Taliban. The only thing that works against determined fighters is boots on the ground and a military willing to slaughter civilians- ala Tienaman square.
Don't mess with the Chinduinos buddy or you'll have a lot of very mad and very smart people to deal with.
US dollar is down over 10% vs China since the Trumpster came to power.
China hardly exports any steel or aluminum to the US.
Is that $600 Billion worth of pirated movies? Surely it's in the Trillions.
You might want to note that China rejected Marxism after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, they are capitalist -- perhaps more so than the US. What they aren't is a representative democracy. But then neither, in practice is the US which is more of a two party oligarchy Hard to think of a country that actually is a representative democracy .... Iceland maybe. Switzerland somewhat I'm told
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
If your country is a shithole as big as any of the cited regimes, having guns or not is the least of your problems. With that said, your country isn't like any of those regimes (is retarded and deeply flawed, that allows for gerrymandering - a very legal way to rig elections - but it's not as bad as the cited regimes) so stop being a f*cking drama queen and act your age... or at least come up with a better fallacy.
You give up your guns. I'll keep mine locked away in a gun safe like they've been for over 10 years. I prefer to have the option to defend myself against tyranny. You can go fuck yourself!
Stop trying to undermine and water-down the constitution. You may want 1984, but, I (and many like me) don't. So choke on your own cum you fucking batshit idiot!
Nuking civilian targets also works wonders.
Australia has a huge trade Surplus with China, and a huge deficit with the USA. So the money goes around in a circle.
And if one focuses on the goods, rather than the money, China is supplementing US incomes, which is silly.
However, there is a good non-macro economic reason to restrict some things like robots. The US did well historically by supporting its inefficient watch making industry against the Swiss. When war came, they could make instruments.
But I think that the USA will do what it does best -- large scale farming. And China will do what it does best -- manufacturing and technology.
Nobody wins a trade war. Everybody loses.
A trade war is not capitalistic. It is not free market. It is crony capitalism; managed trade designed to benefit favored companies at the expense of the consumer. I'm a Republican (not happily; more for practicality), and this trade war is the dumbest thing Trump has done.
American and Chinese consumers alike will suffer because of this.
Yes, let's be like Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Marxist China, Pol Pot Cambodia. Let's take away everyone's ability to defend themselves from government overreach. Then we'll only have millions killed! Yay!
Hitler did zillions of bad things, you can't use his choices as a childish negative reason just because he did it. Hitler built up industry, supported engineering, so we shouldn't do those things? Hitler & his generals were pretty good at tactics, they used tanks well for a time, should we not use tanks? There are endless things like this. Hitler was an almost beyond belief evil leader, who was able to motivate an entire country to do horrible things together. But he brushed his teeth occasionally, don't make idiotic comments that just because he did something we shouldn't. It's like saying "socialism is bad", I am calling X socialism, so it's bad.
You might want to note that China rejected Marxism after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, they are capitalist -- perhaps more so than the US. What they aren't is a representative democracy. But then neither, in practice is the US which is more of a two party oligarchy Hard to think of a country that actually is a representative democracy .... Iceland maybe. Switzerland somewhat I'm told
China is not really captialist. The govt can step in and change things whenever it suits them, and they do it all the time, like restrictions on money, propping up failing govt loans and real estate overbuilding. They blocked cryptocurrency.
The us is a democracy, we do have real third parties that sometimes win elections. Not much, but the main reason is the vast majority of people vote for one of the candidates they know. And of course dem and rep don't exatly encourage the rise of third parties, plus our govt system kind of accidentally discouraged third parties with winner take all style congress. We have a lot of problems like too much influence by rich people, the attacks of rich people have been winning for a while but it's not as bad as you say. We aren't quite living in idiocracy but we are moving that way. If we have another president like trump it might be that we are doomed. following the roman empire decline of a series of bad leaders.
Big Giant Orange Head says that we are not in a trade war. Therefore we are not.
Big Giant Orange Head is always right, even if he contradicts the laws of economics and physics. If such a contradiction arises, the laws change to conform to what BGOH says!
In the US, cheap foreign manufacturing has done more to improve the lives of the poor than any govt policy. Sure, it might have taken a load of jobs, but look at all those cheap tellies and PS4s that even the jobless can afford. Mild /s