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Comment by MSFT_Edging | Hacker News Reader

I had to delay learning PCB design during Covid because I couldn't source any parts.

Now prototypes will cost at least 2x, if not more.

These tariffs are essentially shooting US technology development in the foot. Chinese engineers will have the greatest access in the world to manufacturing and components, while engineers in the US who don't already have a large company to bankroll them will just find something else to do.

I had some projects in the pipeline that I might not bother with now. It's simply not worth the money. US PCB fabs are probably even worse, they still get a lot made overseas, but now they also hate you because they exist to do large orders for the DoD, not joe schmo democratizing hardware.

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this exact 'cottage industry' you speak of is what existed in north america and started little conpanies like Apple, etc.

The sad fact that we lost all of these because of the entire electronics supply and design chain moving to Taiwan and China, is why we are where we are. These barriers might bring some back, who knows.

Ultimately global open borders, for goods and services, had their own issues. For example open competition between free market economies and centrally planned economies creates rather obvious advantages of scale that are skewed...

> The sad fact that we lost all of these because of the entire electronics supply and design chain moving to Taiwan and China, is why we are where we are. These barriers might bring some back, who knows.

And yet almost all the actual design was still happening in the U.S.

It’s almost like the origin of the components didn’t matter. Access did.

And even if the origin might have shifted the fact that access increased made Americans stronger in Tech not weaker.

Right now, we don’t have origins of manufacturing nor access. Even if some parts of the industry does reshore to the U.S., the access will still be limited primarily to those parts of the industry that re-shored and even there access would be lower due to higher costs.

It’s incredible how America had the fastest growing major economy, was the leader in nearly all the industries of the future, has insanely high per capita income that continues to grow, and decided to throw all that away all because it refuses to undo the decisions that allow all that growth in wealth to accumulate with a tiny minority of the country.

I agree entirely with what you said. To extend on your point, we _want_ the higher order manufacturing here. Not the lower order.

Think for a second. Would you rather there be a new aluminum plant in the US? Or would you rather there be another successful airplane manufacturer. In no world does prefering the aluminum plant get you anywhere close to the same GDP of a airplane factory

We want both. We don't need nearly enough airplanes to employ everyone assembling airplanes. The airplane workers and engineers being in close contact with the aluminum workers and engineers will enable innovation from both. And if it becomes harder to get aluminum from another country, having the domestic plant means we can keep making airplanes. But of course Trump's senile "plan" will get us neither.

Bro, Trump's tariff plan from 1988 TOTALLY reflects what 2025 America needs to do.

https://www.financialexpress.com/trending/trump-tariffs-vira...

All good points with one comment.

Was there a real example of centrally planned economies after the fall of the ussr? More like centrally guided: Korea, Japan, China are all equally good examples.

> is why we are where we are

Which is where? A country outpacing everyone else in growth and recovery after COVID?

This assumption that globalism = bad because we don't have people assembling electronics for $10/hour is strange. Does some of that need to be reshored for national security? Definitely, and that's why we have the CHIPS act but Trump is trying to kill it so I'm not really sure what these tariffs are trying to accomplish and I don't think this administration does either.

I am exploring whether PCB prototypes can be imported tariff-free under HTSUS 9817.85.01. However getting a tariff broker to figure out how to do this properly might also be expensive.

The big pain point for me would be the assembly service. Smaller designs I don't mind putting together by hand, I have a toaster oven and low-temp paste.

If I'm designing something that would need 100 units though, that's going to send a design cost from reasonable to out of reach rather quickly.

This feels like the exact kind of thing Chinese vendors/marketplaces are going to be figuring out at scale, but that still won't stop them from doubling their prices even if they do avoid paying many of the high tariff taxes. Market disruptions are an excuse to raise prices (see the first round of Trump inflation from the completely inappropriate economic response to Covid), and I wouldn't be surprised if the shipped-direct-from-China business drastically grows because of the recent tariff tax changes.

Another perverse incentive is that to get items sitting in a US warehouse (eg Amazon), the seller has to pay the high tariffs before they can even start selling them, while also hoping that tariffs aren't lowered before they can sell them all (and the expectation is that Trump is going to have to dial back this idiotic "plan" of his some time). Meanwhile the seller of a direct shipped item has a confirmed sale and cash-in-hand by the time the shipment gets to the border. So I expect the selection of US-stocked items is about to drop dramatically, and the poor economic conditions and abjectly poor leadership is going to leave many people not feeling too bad about (or even gleefully embracing) shopping direct.

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