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Yeah, my electronics hobbies are probably severely curtailed. I am assuming that the cancelling the de minimus exception is the real killer. I assume I can no longer afford PCBWay, AliExpress.

Recent purchases I am not likely to be able to afford: NVIDIA TESLA M40 cards from China I found on eBay and a "mining rig" mother board from AliExpress. (Was putting together a, formerly, inexpensive local-Llama rig.)

To be sure, these are things I don't need but they were on the cusp of affordability from the point of view of a hobbyist and so I indulged — and I will not now because they will now cross that threshold.

And I expect to see the price double on my Zenni glasses going forward. I used to like to find old medium-format cameras from Asian countries on eBay (probably not now). I already bailed on purchasing what would have been my first drone with what has happened to the prices on them.

Shipping is not tariffed, so I expect that hobby PCBs will still be affordable. ($2 PCBs becoming $5 is hardly a deal-breaker.)

Aliexpress I expect will adapt to end (or at least sharply curtail) free shipping promotions and start charging for shipping (which will not be tariffed), which better aligns what you’re actually paying for anyway.

So, getting 100 transistors for $1.02 and free shipping with $10 total might not be a thing any more, but $0.25 for those transistors and $0.75 for shipping with a $10 minimum might be (and is probably closer to the true economics than $1 and free shipping via airplane).

Just to get the numbers right: [0] there is a $25 minimum, that becomes $50 June 1st, on all packages below or at $800.

So those $0.25 transistors - after June 1st - come at $50.25 plus shipping.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

> Just to get the numbers right: [0] there is a $25 minimum, that becomes $50 June 1st, on all packages below or at $800.

Things are changing very quickly, so it's hard to keep up. But I believe this was revised on April 9th to $100 dollars a package from HK or PRC on May 2, and $200 a package starting June 1.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/modi...

> (b) increase the per postal item containing goods duty in section 2(c)(ii) of Executive Order 14256, as modified by the Executive Order dated April 8, 2025, that is in effect on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 2, 2025, and before 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on June 1, 2025, from 75 dollars to 100 dollars; and

> (c) increase the per postal item containing goods duty in section 2(c)(ii) of Executive Order 14256, as modified by the Executive Order dated April 8, 2025, that is in effect on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on June 1, 2025, from 150 dollars to 200 dollars.

> Just to get the numbers right:

Yes, we should always strive to do that.

I haven’t gotten something from Aliexpress “sent through the international postal network” in a very long time (15 months or more and I think probably several years). Most everything I get comes from an Aliexpress-run line haul (which brokers the export and import customs clearance) and then is delivered by a local carrier (usually UniUni or another one they started calling themselves recently).

Sometimes they use Cainaio which uses USPS for last mile delivery, but based on the timings of tracking events, I think are still line-hauled and cleared by Cainaio as the broker rather than via the “international postal network”.

Both of those case would fall under the first of the sub-bullets ("will be subject to all applicable duties") rather than the second.

I agree the $50 would kill the current cheap [postal] shipping of PCBs, but I’m pretty sure JLCPCB, PCBWay, etc will all switch to line hauls as well (which might even end up being cheaper than DHL that I usually pick now).

It’s annoying, but I don’t think it marks the end of cheap hobby electronics parts; they just got a little less cheap.

> "I’m pretty sure"

That's an interesting thing to say after tariff-on / tariff-off high intensity workouts almost every day. Not to mention the great desire to fire everyone standing in the way of the glorious inflation... did you take that into account while calculating the "little less cheap" thing?

Just read the executive order linked in presto8's comment (above yours) and tell me you are sure what it means. Spaghetti legislation is nothing new but this is worse than a noodle trash container in the back yard of a Chinese restaurant. In the age of AI... presumably.

Its interesting how America is basically run by an elected king.

In Europe these kind of decisions take months of meetings and consultations.

He's not a king, he's CEO In Chief. This is the inevitable result of a society which pathologically mistrusts government on principle, but which worships celebrity and free market capitalism. It's surprising the pretense of being a Republic lasted as long as it did.

If we actually had pathological mistrust of government, Trump simply wouldn't have the power to do all the crazy shit he's doing.

But we don't. What we do have is pathological mistrust of our political opponents in the government. More so on the right, but it's fairly pervasive. So "small government" gets used as a way to trip up your opposition when it's in power, but as soon as you get the reins, it's full steam ahead.

He only has that power because Congress is allowing him to abuse "emergency" powers. Authority to set taxes lies with Congress.

Prior to 2016 I had no such thing, nor did pretty much anyone I know on the left. I disagreed with, for example, Romney, but I didn't pathologically fear or mistrust him. Bush was a war criminal, but what president hasn't been since WW2?

This started with Obama. The audacity of a black man to be president had so many people I thought were reasonable saying, with no hint of Jest, that he was the Antichrist. Suddenly mustard flavors and suit colors were signs of the apocalypse. And ever since then the left have been "the enemy within" meant to be rooted out.

Trump, of course, spent his time amplifying this message. And his campaign and presidency is what drove the left into pathological fear.

Conservative racism poisoned the blood of our nation yet again.

Cainaio is used for AliExpress Choice and Standard Shipping, part of AliBaba also. In USPS, it usually shows up as Albatross America. I went on an electronic parts AE binge prior to tariffs.

You weren’t alone.

I’d be very curious to see the shape of the curve of small parcel orders (or just overall AE volume) in the 60 days leading up to April 30.

Check out the planned minimum per-item fees for low-value (sub-$800) shipments planned when de minimus is rescinded for China.

They're.... high.

If clearing customs per-package is too expensive or inconvenient, I expect Aliexpress will tweak their managed logistics process to import items as bulk shipments in the cargo container at wholesale value and add estimated customs charges as a checkout fee on top of item prices. I don't think big print "free shipping" will be affected as it gets people to buy more often and it pads the margins when people buy more at one time.

They already had to make a much bigger adjustment when they stopped being able to dump packages onto USPS, and from my experience it improved the delivery times dramatically. That's the thing about this ham-fisted "tough on China" authoritarian kayfabe - China isn't just some monolithic entity just sitting on their hands, they're now the distributed innovators operating in a nimble fashion.

They already do bulk imports, and they have have been doing it for years.

With their "Standard Choice" shipping, for me where I am, that means that my stuff is sent from New York to me in Ohio with USPS. There's no customs forms attached when it comes my way, nor should there be: I didn't import anything.

How it gets from wherever it started to New York is not my problem -- just as it isn't my problem with the other imported stuff I buy, from any other place that I buy it (whether from Amazon or the bricks-and-mortar store on the corner). They import things in bulk, and the importer pays tariffs as they do so. The cost of them doing this is built into the price that I paid up-front.

The recent non-committal slapstick comedy approach of the current administration does make things hard to predict, but: I predict that a widget that used to cost 50 cents to buy on AE with Standard Choice may end up costing me a dollar or two -- a huge increase as a percentage, but meh. It's not like that 50-cent widget going to suddenly cost fifty bucks or something.

(Now, that said: I have bought inexpensive widgets from China that I imported directly -- sans Standard Choice. But that's different. In these instances, the seller just puts my widget in the mail on their side of the world, and it shows up in the mail on my side of the world -- with a customs form stuck to it. Elimination of de minimis will affect the things that I import in this fashion in a very expensive way because that customs form is going to have an additional price attached to it.)

Ah, I didn't know that with Standard Choice they already did the importing themselves. I figured they were doing something like bringing the bulk containers into a customs free zone, splitting the individual packages up to get them ready for delivery, then brokering them as individual imports so they fell under de minimis and sending them out to be delivered.

Since what you say would imply that if I order something from Aliexpress right now (so it wouldn't clear customs until May 4th or so), that my package wouldn't get tariff-impounded but Aliexpress would just eat the increased tariff cost - how sure are you about this? The last Standard Choice packages I received I didn't really pay attention to if they had customs forms, and don't really know the rules around that anyway (ie could there just be an electronic customs form and not a physical one attached to the package)

I'm 100% sure about the differences in customs form presence.

Stuff that ships regular-way comes via usually comes via China Post and always with a customs form that is usually somewhat dubious (wrong item description, wrong value, checked "gift" box, etc). This always feels like just I'm buying from an individual seller and importing directly; like the equivalent of how buying internationally from small sellers on US eBay is.

Stuff that ships Standard Choice comes without any of that (and also often gets consolidated into a singular larger bag that has smaller bags from different sellers inside of it). When they're not consolidated, then the individual bags are always re-labeled with a paid USPS mailing label over the original. However it is that my Standard Choice orders are handled, they always show up in my mailbox looking like very-normal domestic mail and there are no customs forms to be seen.

So least in terms of logistics, Standard Choice has every appearance of being very centralized and bulk-oriented -- including within the US.

In terms of certainty: That's all that I'm certain of, and I'm only certain that it is this way for me here where I am.

The rest (eg, how this actually plays out in the future) is speculation on my part. I think my speculation may be correct, but I do not know that it is correct. I feel confident, but I won't be able to know if my confidence is misplaced until after the dust settles. They're obviously free to restructure any or all of this, and are incentivized to do whatever it is that makes them the most money.

(baseless speculation) perhaps China Post requires a paper customs declaration on packages, whereas commercial clearance is free to keep that information electronic and present it to US Customs electronically?

FWIW my Choice packages have been showing up by consumer car courier rather than USPS.

I've got a couple of things still coming that I ordered late. They should be clearing customs before the 2nd, so hopefully I won't have to find out what actually happens!

Sure, maybe. That's definitely another possibility.

I only know about this >.< much about how things like customs and tariffs actually work.

Super bummed out about the glasses thing, too. So nice to have glasses that were cheap enough it wasn't that big a deal when a pair got destroyed for some reason, but also didn't look like shit.

OSH Park makes their circuit boards in the USA: https://oshpark.com/

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.

1. They're massively unpopular and likely to cause electoral losses in '26 and '28 which will immediately undo them

2. Consumers know the tariffs will likely cause a recession, and will likely be undone in 4y. Pretty much every major spending purchase that can be delayed, will.

3. Companies know 4y is not enough time to invest in new supply chains or new manufacturing plants. Given sinking demand they will shed jobs and hunker down for the duration.

I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic. I'm perfectly content with the devices I currently have. I will root and install a third party rom instead of buying a new phone. My 3090 will happily play old / AA games for the duration. Travel will likely be reduced thanks to the weak dollar and anti us sentiment in general.

People keep acting like there is some plan or higher thought process.

Sometimes, people are just morons.

Look at how Bessent had to sneak in and try and get the tariffs paused: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navar...

There's no coordinated strategy there.

There's no coordinated strategy anywhere.

The people with real power voted him in to lower taxes, and in return he is nuking the economy, neutering the Pentagon, trashing public health, isolating the US from tourists and skilled immigrants, walking public education back at least a century, killing the next generation of R&D, murdering rational climate policy with a coal-powered chainsaw, and handing government software and data to enemy powers.

The entire machinery of governance - official and public, as well as off-the-record "do as I say and I'll fund your campaign" private - has folded like tissue paper.

The only pushback is from the judiciary, and their orders are as likely to be ignored as implemented. And parts of academia.

It's astonishing.

Coordinated strategy will be against the democratic vote.

> nuking the economy, neutering the Pentagon, trashing public health, isolating the US from tourists and skilled immigrants, walking public education back at least a century, killing the next generation of R&D, murdering rational climate policy with a coal-powered chainsaw, and handing government software and data to enemy powers.

How is that any different from what has been going on in the past 40 years... Biden kept almost all of Trump's tariffs and other policies. And Trump kept a lot of Biden's policies and added on to them.

This comment is so disingenous it's almost pointless to respond to.

Previous presidents did things because they genuinely believed that what they were doing was the right thing for America based on their deeply-held beliefs.

Trump has no beliefs. He does not act from rational thought. He does whatever makes him feel good in the immediate moment, without regard to the consequences or even his own prior words and deeds.

I think he genuinely believes in his own genius, and that it makes him some kind of messiah figure for US.

This comment is built on mind reading. Like you can tell what Joe Biden or Barack Obama genuinely believed, and what Donald Trump or George Bush were pretending to believe. No evidence can convince you one way or another because you've already read their minds and can tell who is genuine and who's an interloper

I don't need to read minds.

Bush, Obama, and Biden expressed coherent, reasoned ideologies and plans of action, and as presidents, acted consistently with their own words and deeds. I may have disagreed with Bush's policies, but I know that he actually believed that what he was doing was what he thought was best for America based on his ideological beliefs, because he was able to articulate why. (And those ideological beliefs didn't change on a whim and weren't centered around what was best for him personally.)

Trump doesn't issue coherent thoughts. He doesn't use reason. He can't explain why he does why he does because he doesn't act based on reason; he just goes base of whatever feels good in the second it's flashing through his brain. At the start of the month, he changed his mind on tariffs literally dozens of times in a few hours; so quickly and so frequently that even his own White House didn't know what the tariff policy was for several days. The Secretary of Treasury even said that the best place to find out what our tariff policy was is the President's twitter account (never mind that Congress determines tariffs, not the president).

Everybody is great until they're the worst ever. If someone disagrees with him for whatever reason, they're losers and traitors and maybe should go to jail. Every member of his first administration refused to come back the second time around, so he calls them all losers and traitors. He appointed Powell to the Federal Reserve chair, and now he's calling him Biden's puppet for not doing the stupid thing Trump is demanding that he do to bail him out of the other stupid thing Trump is doing. He appointed two of the justices to the SCOTUS and hundreds of federal judges and now he's calling them "out of control" because they won't just roll over and okay the unlawful things he's doing.

Did you really say how is that different?

You know he’s an actual idiot based on his latest proclamation that he won’t escalate further against China because “then people won’t buy.”

We’re already way, way beyond levels that effectively freeze all trade between the two countries.

Which, if we’re to believe the sycophants, is just the price to pay to onshore manufacturing.

Apparently the guy is playing 3d chess. But they didn't say he's not very good at it.

We're more at the level of him looking at the chess board and trying to snack on the pieces.

Yes, but in this case the 'd' stands for dementia.

He's not playing chess, his only interest in chess in getting the game manufactures to stop their DEI policy of insisting on equal dark and light squares/pieces.

Trump's been obsessed with them since the 80s. That seems to, er, be... about all the rationalisation that is required. No-one thinks this is a good idea; he managed to dig up the world's weirdest economist to give his blessing, and that's about it.

The world’s weirdest economist who then made up an even weirder economist to bolster his case.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro...

Bigly smart, everyone's saying it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trum...

You are not thinking like a mob boss.

The tarrifs have no economic purpose, they are a bullying tactic. Congress controls the ability to levy taxes for a good reason, which is to prevent executive abuse. Trump and his republican supporters are using the tarrifs like the kings of old to negotiate favors and support.

The tarrifs were applied across the board, and will slowly be trimmed back as people kiss the ring.

Pretty much, it will only look great for the next incumbent president to remove the tariffs that were put in place immediately.

And realistically even if major companies moved their businesses to the US, they would still need to pay US prices for the goods and people that would make them. I am sure someone has done a simple cost analysis, but prices would be higher regardless as it costs more to make the stuff in the US.

Although a 3090 is still a kickass GPU, it should still play new AA games for a long time (someone with a 3080).

> I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic.

Aren't Civics made in the US, with mostly US and Canadian parts? They might come through the tariffs without too big a hit.

Apparently the hybrid hatchback Civic was made in Japan, but now Honda is moving production to the U.S.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-product...

As long as the tariffs reduce competition, the prices will still increase. Stuff isn’t priced at cost.

I'd wager that some people in this administration are banking on there not being a next administration

Sounds like a win for the climate, as a nice side effect.

Yes well, covid was a nice win for the climate. It was also a massive and devastating recession which we basically money printed our way out of. It would be nice if we could address climate issues with direct legislation instead of suffering on the population level (I will be fine)

Except that solar deployment in the US will be massively impacted by this. And that at a time where we are supposed to bring back energy-hungry manufacturing and in theory would need to expand the electrical grid.

Good thing there's lots of coal-fired power plants that Trump just exempted from stronger emissions controls.

Here come those pesky direct effects:

"US to impose tariffs of up to 3521% on south-east Asia solar panels"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tar...

Edit: added title

Unlikely. The other policies is literally designed to remove as much environmental protection as possible, I guess to own the libs.

> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs

Nor, seemingly, does the U.S. president. It’s the same rhetoric we’ve heard from him since the mid 1980’s onward. “We’re being ripped off,” “We’re being laughed at,” “We need to fix the trade deficit…tariffs…” A case of arrested development. Going back to his earliest projects as a nominal real estate developer, the same inability or unwillingness to capitalize on the expertise of others to the detriment of most of his endeavours. Except for image-making. There he excels. This time, the project he is inevitably destroying is the global economy. And there’s no Fred C. Trump to bail us out.

I read recently the tariffs are the policy of some guy Trump latched onto because Kushner likes the title of his book ("Death by China")

Trump took out full page ads about this in the 80s.

The guy in charge of them is still the guy I'm referring to though lol

Trump now has knobs he alone (unless congress stops him) can turn to save or wreck any country, even specific businesses and people (i.e. those that don’t surrender more power to him). For a power obsessed, extreme narcissist, that is worth more than economic success.

The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country.

Sure, for some countries it will hurt short term, but long term they will all just increase trade between each other and do perfectly fine.

China’s exports to the US are only 7% of their GDP. Even if all that went to zero, they’ll still have the highest GDP soon enough.

I don't think a lot of Americans know this: the EU is China's biggest trade partner.

And the EU has free trade in it's DNA.

Free trade? They put tariffs on China in October 2024, before the US Election.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-vot...

cough mostly protectionism, I'm afraid cough.

The EU roleplays as free traders (for exports), but if you look at their actual behaviour (particularly around agriculture) then you can see that they're also a big fan of protectionism at times.

> The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country.

I mean, sortof. Unfortunately both the EU/China/everyone else has been running an export led growth strategy which relies on the US consumer buying their exports.

So, buckle up everyone, it's gonna be a wild ride (and maybe read Trade Wars are Class Wars to understand where the administration may be coming from).

> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.

They are being implemented by people that think that "evolution is just a theory", "global warming is a hoax", "vaccines cause autism and are dangerous", etc.

Free trade is a core belief of Economics as a science, from Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" until the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2024. And discarding inconvenient science is a standard among Republicans (viz their attack on universities).

They're just morons.

I think you're only half right. Most people are woefully undereducated or unwilling to gain knowledge for the sake of understanding things in the modern world. A fatal flaw, because then they rely on smart sounding people, dressed in nice clothing, to tell them how to think.

> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.> At the risk of sounding rude, why the hell don't you understand the point of tariffs?!? Look up as many source as you can on the internet and learn something! You could also read some books.

The "the" in "point of the tariffs" is enough to say that a specific collection of tariffs is being referred to, not the general concept of tariffs.

Given the Trump tariffs are the subject of the article this discussion is attached to and those tariffs are a major current event, they're the obvious default expansion of "the tariffs."

Er, the "the" is in my sentence. You either don't understand tariffs or you don't understand "the point" of tariffs. Let's clear this up, shall we? (And don't try to wiggle out of your original statement, please.)

wing-_-nuts 10 hours ago | prev | next [–]

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.

wing-_-nuts said it, diego_molta quoted it, then you quoted it again and went off about it for some reason, ignoring the 'the' in the process.

Have you considered decaf?

<sigh>

Yes, I know. Decaf can be quite disappointing at first. But you seem a little high strung, and the reduction in caffeine intake might be good for you.

Donald Trump does not need to win an election in any of the years you named

Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k.

He most likely intends to pull out the financial pillar of income tax, and replace it with tariffs. He is likely waiting for the price crunch to blow up so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax.

Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.

How are tariffs regressive? Income taxes are obviously progressive. If you earn $100,000 you are going to be paying a higher percentage of your earnings compared to someone making $10,000 or $50,000. It's not intuitive that someone who makes $100,000 is going to be paying less in tariffs than someone making $50,000 though. How does that work?

They’re regressive in the sense that people with lower income spend more of it on consumption than people with higher income or wealth, who can save or invest at a higher rate.

He's not particularly intelligent.

On first glance that's the case, in practice they clamp down hardest on middle and professional classes. The rich borrow against gains or pay long term capital gains, or just "re-invest" (no profit) into durable assets for their business that hold value longer than they'll be alive.

The scam of income tax is that it's progressive on paper but not in practice.

You are not wrong, but that situation won't change if you moved to another taxation scheme. The poor are too poor to have much to take from them. So they go after those who are a rung or two above to tax. The dynamic does not change irrespective of taxation system.

"The scam of income tax is that it's progressive on paper but not in practice."

Perfectly put. It's always bothered me that the tax brackets don't continue on in a logarithmic fashion, e.g. new brackets at 1.5 million, 15 million, 150 million, etc.

Focusing on brackets for earned income is a distraction. Those only apply to relatively rare sports stars, actors, etc. The real cheats are things like tax rates being lower for capital gains, and that people receiving rental/royalty income can subtract all of their expenses (whereas wage earners cannot).

Arguably a bigger cheat is that if you have enough wealth tied up in stocks, you can realize capital gains for the sake of taking out loans to live off of without having to realize the gains for the sake of taxes. Then, you can pass those investments onto your inheritors with a stepped-up cost basis so they don't have to pay tax on the gains, either.

Yes even though I'm no fan of taxes, allowing borrowing against gains is clearly "realizing" them, it is an absolutely absurd fiction that allows this to be untaxed.

Ah yes: buy, borrow, and die. It definitely works.

I don't think stepped-up basis should go away though, otherwise it's just the government getting a second cut of the inflation it causes.

The bigger issue for society is that our equity markets just don't have any real risk of losing your lunch anymore, so these strategies emerge.

Sure, that was already mentioned and I skipped mentioning it again because focusing too much on that one thing is likely to distract from the overall problem. It's not bigger, it's just different. It has also been made less attractive now that interest rates exist again (at least for the time being until Krasnov gets his hands on that lever of market manipulation)

(another one in the same vein is that when you donate an appreciated asset, you get a tax deduction of the unrealized value)

> The rich borrow against gains

That they have to pay back with interest. This made a little sense except for short-term loans when one had liquidity issues when interest rates were close to zero or in very, very limited circumstances where someone knew they were close to death - but that more has to do with the broken way we handle taxing inheritance.

With the prime rate is 7.5% today, it makes far less sense.

> "re-invest" (no profit) into durable assets for their business

Capital expenditures aren't subtracted from revenue. They have no effect on profit.

>Capital expenditures aren't subtracted from revenue. They have no effect on profit.

This is a cheap slight of hand to confuse unsophisticated readers. It has effect on taxable profit since much of cap ex is deductible.

> since much of cap ex is deductible

Since when?

Last I checked, capex was not deductible. You can deduct depreciation of assets over time, but that's not going to offset profit to create a loss unless you're spending far more money than you profited (by say, taking out loans).

There is the expiring bonus depreciation provision on a limited limited class of assets which would let you create a loss, but even that's subject to recapture if you sell those assets.

About 3/4 of households make under $150k/year. Having no income tax will be hugely popular with them. It would kill the argument that Trump is only interested tax breaks for the rich.

It would also make it politically untenable to get rid of tariffs and reinstate income tax.

Yea, this is the thing. Can you imagine transitioning over to a 0 income tax situation and then adding all of that infrastructure back? You know DOGE is going to nuke the servers that do it and rm -rf the repositories so if it's ever returned to law, everything will need to be done from scratch (likely making it untenable).

If you're an IT professional in the US Government, I would argue you have an obligation as a concerned citizen to make some local backups of the code powering the systems you work on every day and keep them somewhere safe...

Or it would make it politically quite tenable to get rid of tariffs and greatly raise income taxes on people making over $150k.

They already do pay the vast majority of income taxes.

That's because they make the vast majority of the income.

People really don't comprehend how much money the top 0.01% makes.

True, they pay around 75-80% of income taxes.

I suppose the good news for them then is that if tariffs fail to replace the 20-25% of income tax that would be lost by eliminating income tax on people making under $150k and it has to come from raising taxes on the folks making over $150k it would only be a 25-33% tax increase on them.

It's a good start, now let's raise capital gains taxes to where they rightly out to be (i.e. more than sweat-of-the-brow income, not less).

The main takeaway from this fact being astonishment at just how much the top 1% really earns!

I don't see the numbers though. Tariffs are a compete non-starter as far as government revenue goes, "income from tariffs" on the "countries that have been robbing us" is mere theatrics (those countries only accepted what was given/pushed to them)... Ergo, borrowing remains the only option, with lots and lots of inflation. I'm not sure how popular that will be.

Well, just to play the devil's advocate a bit, this is definitely a crazy idea but it might have some logic to it:

1) taxing consumptions instead of income has the advantage of being much harder to evade. It puts an end to tricks like living off loans or even simply detracting expenses- you cannot detract anything if you're not taxed at all;

2) only taxing imported goods means that anything that benefits the local economy can be purchased tax-free; while imports from abroad become, say, twice as expensive as before. However, you also have a much higher disposable income and, at least at the beginning, no other option.

So the gist of it would be: we levy the same amount of money as before by taxing exclusively consumptions, and we exempt from taxation all domestically produced goods because it's still money reinvested in the economy.

The problem is that you massively distort the economy, making it less efficient aka poorer. And that's even before considering the fact that other countries will retaliate.

Wasn't the income tax introduced as a temporary measure in WW1, and prior to that the majority of state income was generated via tariffs? Shifting the burden can certainly cause distortions, but we already caused those distortions getting into this situation in the first place.

He wants to get rid of his taxes, reducing other people’s taxes is part of the deal. Tariffs are moving taxes around, everyone pays but he’s hoping that he will be the least affected.

Actually-rich people pay little or no income tax.

Most of what they pay is capital gains, and usually the long-term rate (15% or 20%, depends), which is lower than all but the lowest two (0%, 12%) of seven brackets applied to people who actually work for a living.

Plus they don't pay FICA on that, which is another ~7.5% for W2 and ~15% for contract workers.

Also, they often manage to avoid even paying the long-term capital gains rate.

It depends what you mean by rich people. Do you mean people like Doctors and Lawyers who work for their money, or do you mean investors and CEOs who created a company worth millions/billions, and the shares they own in that company mean they are also worth millions/billions. Because I can tell you the former certainly pay income tax, and I have heard from many doctors and lawyers that they weren't planning on working on that weekend because that marginal tax rate made the juice not worth the squeeze so they spent the weekend on the golf course instead

You're not really rich if you have to work for pay to maintain a (relatively) expensive life style. It's the distinction between the rich and the "professional class" or "upper-middle class". The really rich are capitalists, in the sense of making their money from owning stuff.

Looks like the top marginal rate's about 50% (including the top state rate of ~13%), but that's also way past the point where FICA's dropped off so it's not quite as bad (relative to middle tax brackets) as it looks. I can definitely see turning down ~50% of (say) $2,000 in exchange for a free Saturday if I'm already making north of a quarter-million a year (individual—brackets are higher for joint filing). Hell, when I was a freelancer, for every single vacation I took the main cost was foregone income, so I've even done basically that exact thing, though without being in that high a tax bracket. In fact, even today, I could probably take on paying work many weekends, and never do, so I make the same choice all the time despite being well under the top tax bracket.

Like, working the weekend normally isn't worth it for most people who can possibly afford not to do it, tax bracket be damned. Did these doctors and lawyers work a pretty normal number of hours that week? If so, I don't really understand what you're getting at. Seems like they just wanted to frame a normal thing most people do as a complaint about taxes.

Yes, with Trunp everything is a lever he's using in a negotiation to get what he really wants. I'm not claiming he's playing "4d Chess" or is some kind of wizard but everything is a "deal" to him.

But he also says the tariffs will bring manufacturing back. If that works then the tariff money tanks.

It would only make sense if consumption of tariff-imposed goods would keep steady to make up for the loss of income taxes, with consumer confidence cratering there's no way consumption keeps steady. On top of that you have inflation which will cause the Fed to raise interest rates, further lowering credit offering for consumption, bond yields raising which costs more of the budget for interest payment, requiring more taxes, it's a stupid plan all around...

>Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k.

Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26?

Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt? Remember how that went down? The chances of the US being able to get rid of income tax in the next 4 years is basically zero.

> Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26?

Their chances will maybe be higher, if they cut income taxes.

All it'll cost is moving our already-nigh-inevitable debt crisis a few decades closer to today.

> Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt?

Both Republican administrations this millennium have done exactly that. I see no reason to expect they won't do it again.

> Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26?

The optics of Democrats voting against a full tax cut for those earning less than $150K would be interesting to say the least.

I mean someone's gotta be the responsible adult in the room right? Every projection I've seen on tariffs doesn't put the revenue generated anywhere near enough to cover cutting income tax. You want to rework the tax system, be my guest, but pay for it, and don't tank the world economy in the process.

If the tariffs are able to act as a sustained source of revenue then they're not working to bring manufacturing back to the US. If they work to bring manufacturing back then they're not going to raise much revenue (long term). Either way, the bulk of the pain is going to be borne by average people.

This is entirely contrary to their other supposed goal, which is to bring back manufacturing. If we bring back manufacturing, tariffs won't pay our bills, because nobody will pay them.

It's almost like it's bullshit.

>Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k.

Trump has openly talked about his plan to replace income tax with tariffs for years. Not just for "earnings under $150k" -- that was some post-facto inventions by Howard "Used Car Salesman" Lutnick on some news program appearance after tariffs were proving spectacularly unpopular -- but Trump has constantly ruminated on the grand old days of the 1890s, at least when he isn't talking about that ol' timey word "groceries" or showerheads, light bulbs and coal. And every economist save a few nuts like Pete Navarro (or his associate Ron Vara) have soundly announced that it's an incredibly stupid plan.

Here in reality, thus far the only tax break offered up has been an extension on tax reductions for the super rich. No tax free tips, overtime, etc. Only the super rich have benefitted.

Further, it economically makes zero sense and Trump has repeatedly argued completely contrary "wins" from his tariffs: both that all of the manufacturing and other production will return to the US (ignore that the US has effectively full employment, and such would be massively inflationary without a dire reduction in US quality of life), yet somehow he's going to make trillions from tariffs, which would require such an egregious tariff rate that there would be no imports at all and thus no tariff income. Federal spending would have to drop by almost 80% for tariff funding of the government to be remotely rational, and that means demolishing the military and social security.

>so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax

Yeah, that isn't at all how Trump operates. Much like DOGE and their hilarious "$5000 cheques for all the savings" that will never, ever happen -- and quite the contrary the government financial position is more dire than ever -- Trump makes all of his promises up front. Like his tips and overtime tax claims, both of which are never going to happen. Or his amazing healthcare plan that's coming in two weeks. Or how about that line of countries offering everything and their 90 deals in 90 days. This guy is the definition of overpromising and underdelivering.

There is zero scenario where tariffs even cover the current deficit. And as Trump demolishes the credibility of the USD and US TBills (people don't realize that US banks have been increasingly forced to buy these as the global market as dissolved), it's going to get drastically worse.

We're well on track to move the debt crisis we were already all-but guaranteed to see in a few decades, to... this decade.

You stumped most everyone when you used the word "reality". (Which is correct.) Most are so scared of where the country is heading, reality is pretty foggy. "Criminality", now there's a timely word we can all understand, except the big orange dummy has manipulated the supreme court so much we're not sure if we can trust it to maintain the rule of law. (After all, the tariffs seem to be a tool to crash the stock market, buy low/sell high, no?) Shamefully, it doesn't take much to completely fool the boomers (My generation, the stupidest of all time.) by making enemies of almost anything or anyone.

Take the nugget of truth that is the problem (there are inefficiencies in government work, there are arguments that tariffs could be adjusted for economic reasons) and act like the deliberate system breaking actions being taken aren’t the part worth discussing. Then blame immigrants, China, and “something something woke”. Then let “centerists” distract/water down the conversation by injecting random “both sides” arguments to frame things as nothing out of the ordinary and nothing to be done.

These tariffs will have a deindustrializing effect for complex goods.

- Exemptions for electronics

- Unemployment at 4%, no labor to work in factories

- Raw inputs now 10%+ more expensive, meaning worse international competitiveness

- Policy uncertainty deterring investment

Looking at the labor force participation rate it seems like there is a lot of labor to work in the factories U-3, the official unemployment rate only includes people who were actively looking for a job in the last 4 weeks. Meaning if you've been out of work for half a year and you stopped sending resumes the last 4 weeks (because none of the local employers are responding to your resume) you are not included in the unemployment rate

> The estimates become highly dependent on how influential China is for final assembly.

The article mentions this but then doesn’t go much further into it. But this will likely be the biggest factor with tariffs.

China will still produce the electronics and many other goods, but then the goods will be shipped to another country for “substantial modifications” before being shipped to the US to evade the US tariffs on China

> China could continue to produce smartphones for Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

And Africa. Asia and Africa are at the forefront of mobile money adoption.

Yes. Google says " in March 2025, the top five smartphone brands in Africa by market share were Samsung (29.86%), Apple (14.11%), Tecno (13.65%), Infinix (6.62%), and Huawei (6.29%) [Xiaomi and other smaller brands make up the remaining share] ".

So basically, Chinese brands have a 56% market share in Africa (1.5 billion people and probably the market with the most growth reserve).

I checked the article just to see if the IEEE actually spelled "tariffs" wrong (they didn't).

I wonder if this will heat up the used market. In Oct Windows 10 will go EOL unless you start paying M/S. For windows 11 many people will need new hardware.

I wonder if M/S will pull back on their requirements. Of course people could move to Linux :)

typo in the title: tarrifs should be tariffs.

I was trying to buy a laptop yesterday and the ones reviewed three months ago as "best laptop under $1000" are all $1500

I tried using https://camelcamelcamel.com/ to find some examples of this, but no luck spotting obvious price increases.

Curious what brand you were looking at?

I'm the cofounder of https://PriceLasso.com where we do price tracking and price drop alerts on 150+ sites, and so far seeing little in the way of price increases.

Some news sites reported Logitech products went up in price, but from we can see these are normal seasonal patterns.

Ah, maybe it was just unlucky timing then.

Maybe its just the two I was looking at, but the Dell G16 was on a best under $1k list and is $1600 on best buy, and my almost brand new Zephirus G14 that got killed by a spill (rest in peace) went from $1200 when i got it to $1700 on best buy as well.

Acer Nitro V kept its price at what the reviews said and that's what I ended up getting, but still weird that 2 of 3 changed

Are you sure you are looking at the exact same configs? I looked up both G16 and Zephyrous 14 and on Keepa.com their price hasn't moved that much. The notable exception is that their prices dropped quite a bit for Amazon's President's day sale, but both of those had prices hold steady (i.e. within the +-10% range) since then.

Possibly not, I was doing this in a pretty big hurry & was frustrated. Apologies if this was all FUD

yeah, I don't buy it either. I haven't seen any major price rises in the products I frequently check out. I'm assuming they're selling stock that's already in the US and don't have to pay tariffs on.

I assume this is true as well and am at the same time surprised by it. I'd have increased prices or held on to inventory as soon as I know the tariff rate and I know when it's coming. Even if I bought a laptop for $750 and can now sell it for $1000 the prospect of the market price for it going up to $1,500 or even $2,000 and turning a much larger profit is quite enticing. Maybe prices being fairly stable is a sign of low confidence in the tariffs?

Well, you'd be betting that people would still be willing to buy at $1,500 or $2,000. When prices go up that much, demand tends to drop, and for what are essentially toys might even go down to 0. So you'd risk holding on to inventory, and with the 90 day reprieve and the market shocks you might be willing to bet that in a few months there might not be tariffs at all.

It's more that you have bills to pay now, and it costs money to warehouse things. Do you have enough cash around to sell nothing for the next two months and keep paying employees and bills? Are you absolutely certain you'll make more than enough profit in the end to offset that? Are consumers going to hate you for it and is that going to harm your brand?

I brought all my toys the moment these policies were announced.

Case in point. I don't *need* a new Surface , but I saw one for like 500$ off. I don't imagine being able to find one at a reasonable price during the next few years.

Really China is still playing softball here. They could just ban exports to the US tomorrow and we'll be the ones cut off from any moderately advanced technology.

I'm in the market for a new laptop, a new TV, a new car, and a bunch of plywood and tools. I will be buying nothing until the tariffs are gone. No point in paying 10-250% tariffs when I can just wait Trump out.

How is that for European buyers?

This touches on something I'm curious to see play out: How much shopping tourism will we see? If a laptop costs twice as much due to tariffs (as indicated by the forecast in the article) how many US consumers will wait with buying a new laptop or phone till they happen to be in another country? I'm also curious if we'll see a huge spike in smuggling which might give more justification for more spending on border security.

I'm interested to see how this affects Microsoft's messaging to some win10 users for "you need to buy a new PC to continue to be updated" while there's still a significant [0] amount of people to switch in 5-6 months.

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk...

Obviously yes this will happen. Trade restrictions always results in more smuggling and black market activity.

Of course it will happen. I'm curious to what degree. Will 50% of US iPhone sales move abroad? Will smuggling of regular goods become a bigger deal than fentanyl smuggling?

entry level macbook air (m4) is same price as it used to be (in luxembourg): 1 159,36 €

Same price or down slightly.

In Sweden: have not noticed any big swing in prices, either up or down.

I mean VAT here is significantly higher than the equivalent sales taxes in the US, so stuff is almost always more expensive.

You can get VAT refunded if you're only passing through [0]

[0]https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/vat...

Let's just call it what it is - a national sales tax. The only way significant bottom-up manufacturing ecosystems would come back to the US would be through targeted government investment, long term stability, and effective anti-trust enforcement - all things beyond the current administration. If three decades of economic neoliberalism was a steamroller crushing our industrial base, the Trumpist solution is to just throw it in reverse and destroy what domestic industry had managed to spring up in its wake.

I would have thought that despite the general comfort with hypocrisy of the larger Republican party, they would at least have reacted against overtly raising taxes especially to levels of hundreds of percent. But nope, use one synonym and whatever Dear Leader says goes. It's truly a cult.

It's worse than a national sales tax; sales taxes generally only apply to finished goods. Tariffs also apply to manufacturing inputs.

Tariffs are also fertile ground for corruption.

Tariffs motivate smuggling. Smugglers corrupt the government's tax authorities so they will look the other way. Consumers who buy the cheaper product know full well it's smuggled goods. Conclusion: tariffs corrupt all of society. I saw this first hand growing up in South America with tariffs on all imported goods.

Case in point: Apple's exemption

The more ideological parts of the GOP (like the Heritage Institute) have been pushing for consumption taxes as a replacement for the income tax for more years than I can remember. At least since the 2000s. (Just Google the phrase and just about any year since 2003.) It’s always been a bad and regressive idea. With that said, Trump has loved tariffs since the 1980s and so any similarity between the two plans is more a marriage of convenience than any careful plan.

Something important to consider re: comparisons to a "sales tax": a sales tax applies to every unit you sell, a tariff applies even to the units you don't sell.

This is a small distinction with some fun inflationary effects.

How many American houses are built in China? How much American rice is grown in China? How much American lumber is chopped in China? How much American electricity is produced in China?

Since the tariffs target the whole world, my responses look at imports rather than constraining to China.

> How many American houses are built in China?

Roughly 30% of the softwood lumber consumed in the US is imported, and Canada accounts for over 80% of those imports. Other key suppliers include China, Brazil, and Mexico. And that’s just lumber.

The US now imports 1.5 million metric tons of rice. See trend:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/806643/us-rice-import-vo...

> How much American electricity is produced in China?

Generating and distributing electricity requires equipment. More expensive (or hard to acquire) equipment means more expensive energy, affecting just about everything.

Also: some US electricity actually is produced in Canada. One option that seemed to be seriously considered early in this whole dust-up was Canada cutting off electricity supplied to the US. It would've caused chaos in the Northeast.

I think they only pulled back from doing that because it probably would have fairly-directly killed quite a few people.

That begs the question why electricity is cheaper in many countries which have the highest tariffs in the world?

My original questions were of course rhetorical, shining a light on the matter that neither the US nor any country in the world lives only on imported goods.

Since the economy, trade, and production is completely interconnected in a modern, industrialized world, then any changes in policy will have widespread effects. Including good effects.

Maybe your MAGA hat's brim is pulled down too low? There's a real, beautiful world out there if you're willing to see it. Knowledge is a good first step to beauty!

You added nothing to the discussion. Your mental state is that you are a member of a mob who are out to squash anybody who thinks differently, and that gives you an illusion of having power. But in reality you don't know any of the people here, and the only power we have as commenters online is to exchange thoughts and ideas.

As for the real world, there is a large variety of tariff policies around the world, and most countries implement much harsher tariffs than what Mr Trump is suggesting for America. There are many very good arguments for tariffs and against tariffs, let's talk about them instead?

>There are many very good arguments for tariffs and against tariffs, let's talk about them instead?

You haven’t talked about anything. You just keep “asking questions” as if the rhetorical questions are actually making a point, but when they are answered and show negative effects for the US, you just pivot to some other random question.

That or you make sweeping, utterly simplistic statements like “neither the US nor any country in the world lives only on imported goods” (yeah, no one thought they did) or “changes in policy will have widespread effects. Including good effects.” (yeah, if I cut my legs off, I’ll save a fortune on shoes. Win!). You do nothing to actually talk about how “good effects” will outweigh all the bad effects or how we will magically make up for massive imports with domestic production.

> You added nothing to the discussion.

Pot, meet kettle.

[flagged]

> and most countries implement much harsher tariffs than what Mr Trump is suggesting for America.

Which ones?

[flagged]

OK, so you're just a troll. Noted.

[dead]

Ok, it's not the brim, you drank the kool-aid! Tariffs are best negotiated behind closed doors so as not to crash world markets. (Oh, and let's not trash the fed chair in open public either, you saw what happened, right?)

Besides being blind, you might want to wake up also. Your "Mr. Trump" started a tariff war, leaving other countries no choice but to respond. If he would have went through normal sane channels, your 401K wouldn't be tanking right now. Tariffs are how the countries deal with each other, strong arming them, historically, always ends in either backing off or disaster.

<Your mental state is that you are a member of a mob who are out to squash anybody who thinks differently, and that gives you an illusion of having power. But in reality you don't know any of the people here, and the only power we have as commenters online is to exchange thoughts and ideas.>

A mob? Really? Since I don't have a window into your life, like you think you do into mine, I don't really have a rational way to respond to this statement.

> As for the real world, there is a large variety of tariff policies around the world, and most countries implement much harsher tariffs than what Mr Trump is suggesting for America. There are many very good arguments for tariffs and against tariffs, let's talk about them instead?

Sorry, no. This is a common Trumpist talking point that has validated the comment you're responding to.

Every aspect of the US economy is currently wholly reliant on imports. Untangling would certainly be possible, but would require an intelligent fine-grained approach with deliberate analysis and substitution - not ham-fisted blanket import taxes. There is absolutely no sense to any of Trump's actual policies, nor the manner in which they're haphazardly announced and then constantly churned, unless the goal is simply to harm our country.

Debating and critiquing as if these might be good faith attempts at helping our country is a waste of energy that needs to be used more productively. Trumpism/destructionism thrives on our desire for rational debate, because while we debate how to build they just destroy. At this point, regardless of your political persuasion (I'm libertarian), it's time to stop drinking the Kool-aid and wake up to the fact we have a malevolent attacker in the White House. We can go back to debating the finer points of policy after we have an administration that actually puts the interests of the United States first.

[flagged]

Ding,ding,ding! We have an AI bot.

Part of mob behaviour is also dehumanizing your opponent, like you just did. You are showing very predictable behaviour.

It's funny how the argument always comes back to how you're being "unfairly" written off, while the only objective argument you've actually offered is "tariffs can be good too" - presented as if you're some independent tariff enthusiast skeptical of Trump himself and not just a full on America-hating cult member.

Bot or not it doesn't really matter. It's clear you're not going to change your opinion of Dear Leader until this country is in shambles, at which point you'll grumble about how you were lied to while moving on to the next destructionist rallying cry. (I doubt tariffs were a main issue for you twenty years ago)

So it's not really about changing your mind, rather it's really about preventing other people from getting sucked in by the whirlpool of lazy unsubstantiated vibes.

Oh yes a cult member he is, he must be stoned! He hates our country, he must be killed!

You have immersed yourself completely in mob mentality, but this is just a discussion board, so you don't have any power of the mob behind you. You're just screaming into the void. On a ride down the track with the destination paranoid schizophrenia. Because that will be the result if you spend too long thinking that everybody who doesn't think like you is an AI robot, a cult member, a foreign spy, or whatever you're going to call me in your next comment.

My "Dear Leader" is not Trump, it's another tariff guy who probably hates Trump just as much as some people here. Tariffs are not my main issue, but it's the main issue in this comment thread titled "The many ways tariffs will hit electronics". If you read my other replies in this thread, I have outlined some positive and negative effects of tariffs.

Are you going to make a point or just ask questions?

The point is that not everything is imported. You can import oil but you can't import an oilfield. You can import food but you can't import the ground.

That oilfield is pretty useless without drilling equipment.

And ground is useless without seeds, fertilizers, farm equipment and spare parts.

The right question is how significantly those things rely on equipment and supplies produced in China, and the answer is all of them very much do.