this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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The question comes down to whether a phone with a chip in it is subject to the tariff or just raw chips being imported. No one is putting a US chip in it, because US chips don't exist. The foundries to make them don't exist.
If the assembled phone is subject to a "phone" or "general" tariff at 30% and not the 100% chip tariff then it incentivises manufacturing in china vs the US is what I think the OP is saying.
Why wouldn't the tariff apply to chips already in devices? That's the way its always been discussed.
tariffs are over the final product, not the individual components inside that product.
For example Ford was making a cargo van in turkey, but thanks to the chicken tax that they themselves lobbied for, a cargo van made in turkey would have a 25% tariff. Solution: make passenger vans in turkey, import them with 0% tariff, then pay an american to remove and send the passenger seats to the landfill and get a cargo van
That's not correct.
That's how this import tax work.
Ever wondered why converse shoes have felt on the sole? Because in this way they're "by tariff definition" slippers, and slippers have less tax than shoes.
https://www.upworthy.com/why-converse-have-felt-lining
Because tariffs are crude pieces of legislation. The US can't make their own phones anyway, even with 1000% china tariffs, for years. You can't just click your fingers and have manufacturing at that scale and quality exist.
Whether they can or do make their own chips is irrelevant to who is impacted by tariffs.
Well if the US manufacturers need to import chips (read: the item proposed to be subject to a 100% tariff) in order to make their phone with a "competitive advantage", as you've claimed above, then the manufacturers will be impacted by tariffs.
That cost then gets passed onto the consumer.
The phone assembled in the US using imported parts is directly impacted by tariffs. Consumers only care about the end price, not who paid what tariff and at which point of manufacturing.
I don't know how many ways people can explain this to you and you don't get it. I'm assuming you're trolling because this is extremely basic stuff.
I don't know how many ways I can explain that none of this is relevant to the discussion at hand. Which is, as a reminder:
All of what you said is true, and yet this statement remains completely incorrect and the opposite of reality.
Perhaps somehow we still believe he wouldn't fuck over Americans that much.
There's chips in everything and they simply won't be made domestically any time soon.