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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

(a) I mean this tariff does definitely harm China. The reason they're the only viable place to purchase these items is because they're so cheap. Making them more expensive gives space for non-Chinese competitors to enter into business.

(b) It actively harms some businesses, but also gives room for new companies to form where they wouldn't have been able to previously. It's wrong to claim this hurts 'business' in a broad sense.

>Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something.

Perhaps but in this case better for who? It doesn't seem to me that - for most Americans - allowing the Chinese to steal our technology and then underprice our businesses with cheap labor is beneficial.

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> allowing the Chinese to steal our technology and then underprice our businesses with cheap labor [is not beneficial to most Americans]

This tariff isn't preventing that, or punishing the Chinese companies involved.

> The reason they're the only viable place to purchase these items is because they're so cheap. Making them more expensive gives space for non-Chinese competitors to enter into business.

This tariff makes American assembly of Chinese components more expensive than it already is. Finished goods made in China are unaffected.

For example, an assembled-in-china iPhone will stay the same, but the moment this comes into effect, the cost of making the Mac Pro in the US will go up substantially.

To avoid this, apple can either:

1. Shift Mac Pro assembly to any other country.

2. Switch out all their suppliers and components to ensure that nothing comes from China.

Most products have done #1 without the tariff. The tariff just makes it harder to justify keeping anything in the US.

It does not harm china that much:

It's too late for IP on old products, China is becoming more and more interesting for european "brain" (or US is less interesting, i don't know), and China education have caught up to western education (at least in STEM) during the last decade.

The tariffs attack the wrong goods: Us manufacturers will still be buying them at 25% up, and chinese and europeans will sell finished products lower than manufacturers. And China can actually outsource the finishing touch of unfinished products in SW Asia or (even better for almost everyone) in Africa.

Honestly i don't really care but i am interested on how India/Indonesia (and some african countries i hope) will take advantages of Trump policies. To me this is a good thing for the world, general "comfort" of several countries could rise thank to Trump. I know it's frowned upon here, but i like several move he made, including this, and how he made european countries closer.

> Perhaps but in this case better for who? It doesn't seem to me that - for most Americans - allowing the Chinese to steal our technology and then underprice our businesses with cheap labor is beneficial.

- China's labor prices are increasing faster than they are in the US. So fast in fact, people are automating factories in China and/or moving factories to other countries.

- Every country _except_ the US will continue to buy those goods at the real market price.

- This is just exporting US jobs to Mexico/Canada who will assemble and import into US via NAFTA. That is the best case.

- Worst case this sets off a permanent trade war with China and the US is forced to sever ties with every potential "cut out" through which trade can flow. The US would need to knife all of its allies in the back and impose these tariffs on all nations for this to actually work.

- The correct response to China's behavior was the TPP followed by multilateral action to punish China.

> the TPP followed by multilateral action to punish China.

So subserving the US to a more ludicrous IP extension (both in duration and power) from less totalitarian (than china) nations (but still more than the US) is the solution? Laughable and misguided.

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