
Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs - SolaceQuantum
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/trump-orders-u-s-firms-out-of-china-after-beijing-sets-new-tariffs-idUSKCN1VD21E
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Aperocky
It won't matter if US implement 100% tariff on China, what's going to happen
next is that they're still going to create 800 parts in China, which gets
shipped to Vietnam and assembled there and exported as a product of Vietnam.
Vietnam (or whatever other country) would benefit at the cost of China/United
States and more carbon emission due to shipping.

The enormous electronic manufacturing in China isn't moving anywhere, there's
just nowhere that has the scale, infrastructure,and the know how to produce
cheap electronic products. If you think this is still all just people on the
assembly line, you've got a very historical understanding of this process.

~~~
NohatCoder
Every country with tariffs have an army of bean counters whose job it is to
deal with that kind of loopholes. Sure something will slip though, but
anything big will get caught.

~~~
Aperocky
What do you mean? The stuff is made in Vietnam. Just like all of apple which
source their chips to Intel and then assembled in China still count as made in
China as a whole in the tariff book. This practice is as legal as it gets and
cheaper than paying that 25% extra.

~~~
NohatCoder
You may argue that it is made in Vietnam, but if whoever has to tax it don't
agree, your argument counts for nothing. The US taxation officials don't have
to come up with a non-contestable argument for why it is a Chinese product,
they just need an argument that their own courts will accept, that generally
isn't a particularly high standard in a situation where the USA and China are
locked in a trade war.

~~~
Aperocky
Yes, the computer is made of 2750 parts, these parts come from 21 countries
and some of them made several loops through different country. The final
assembly place is $INSERT_COUNTRY. Now tell me, if the $INSERT_COUNTRY is
Vietnam, how will the US government justify say this is not? because right now
that $INSERT_COUNTRY is China and they're levying tax on that basis. You seem
to grossly underestimate how interconnected the world is today.

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mindthegap
> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start
> looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME
> and making your products in the USA.”

What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally)
order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

~~~
ashelmire
There are probably a few ways the president could do it unilaterally, legally:

1) Raise tariffs to absurd levels (like, 10000% tax on anything from China).

2) Some sort of national defense justification. He could probably put all
employees, companies, and executives on terrorism or customs watch lists and
make life difficult for them.

3) Use existing sanctions on other nations as a way to forbid doing business
with various entities in China.

There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be illegal:

4) Unilaterally blockade the nation, since he's chief of the armed forces
(this is an act of war).

~~~
dragonwriter
> There's probably also another way to do it that would, presumably, be
> illegal:

Whether the President commiting acts of war unilaterally is illegal depends on
disputed Constitutional questions, such as the scope of Presidential inherent
powers and the Constitutionality of the delegation of powers to the President
under the War Powers Act.

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umvi
It's hard to just pick up and switch when you are so entrenched.

That said, I would love if more US companies built stuff here in the US. Yeah,
prices might be a little higher, but at least we aren't exploiting the labor
of vulnerable people in foreign countries anymore.

~~~
rat9988
>but at least we aren't exploiting the labor of vulnerable people in foreign
countries anymore

Well, they will be jobless now.

~~~
stronglikedan
But people in other countries would have those jobs available, which is just
as good.

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alexibm
Recently, I was in Germany (I live in Baltimore, MD) and was pleasantly
surprised that a lot of goods are made in Germany. It is hard to find anything
in our stores that isn't made in China.

~~~
johnnyletrois
Germany’s mittelstand is remarkable. Sweden’s domestic manufacturing industry
is also impressive.

Edit for spelling.

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jefe_
The U.S. business community decided years ago that manufacturing should move
overseas. Ever since, the entire U.S. economy has been centered around the
assumption of cheap imports, with the exception of one key product:
microprocessors, a product where the U.S. has long retained dominance. This
dominance provided an opportunity for balance in the U.S. trade relationship
with China, but the leverage was never really used to truly demand changes to
trade practices. Now, the U.S. is starting to wonder if moving everything to
China was such a good idea, but due to Chinese microprocessor advancements,
the U.S. lacks that key trade leverage item they had to realistically
negotiate, and many of their traditional 'negotiating' techniques won't work
with China.

The U.S. can't go to war with China.

The U.S. can't ban Chinese imports.

The U.S. can't overthrow Chinese Government.

Just as U.S. has built their whole economy around imports, China has done the
same with exports, they need to put people in jobs and keep the exports
flowing, so they have no real incentive to rework a favorable deal.

So really the U.S. is relegated to performing a Symbolic Trade war: Declare
China a Currency Manipulator, Stir the pot in Hong Kong, Requesting Companies
return to the U.S.

All the while, the markets are pretending the Trade War is real, delivering
massive swings for large investors capable to profiting from the volatility.

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jhallenworld
I suspect this plays quite well in the key battleground states of Michigan,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That's the only thing he's going to care about.

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Simulacra
Playing devils advocate a little with some of the comments, I think this is a
long time coming for China. The trade imbalances, current manipulation, and
other elements of Chinese governance that has allowed them to get away with so
much, for so long, has reached a zenith. If previous administrations of all
stripes had done more to protect American interests, perhaps the strong
measures of today would not have been necessary.

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Simulacra
Relevent: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-manufacturers-in-china-
brea...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-manufacturers-in-china-breaking-up-
is-hard-to-do-11566397989?mod=rsswn)

"Manufacturers Want to Quit China for Vietnam. They’re Finding It Impossible."

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ivl
This article really took the absurdist language out of his chain of tweets. I
think it's unfortunate, no need to deny people the depressed chuckle when they
read:

> ....My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?

Along with the use of "are hereby ordered" as nothing but bluster.

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tibbydudeza
Well it makes about as much sense as buying Greenland. Good luck with that ...
my money is on China.

~~~
zaroth
If it was actually possible to buy Greenland, for say $50 billion, it would be
an incredible deal for the US.

It has rare earth deposits, but more importantly as the Arctic undergoes
drastic climate changes—particularly in the availability of shipping lanes—it
becomes increasingly strategically significant.

Importantly, Greenland is a net economic loss to Denmark of about $500 million
per year, so it would be saving Denmark a great deal of money to let the US
take it off their hands.

~~~
thrill
That could be put to a vote in Greenland. Trump says to the ~57,000 residents,
"I'll give each of you a million bucks if you vote yes". What do you think
will happen?

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Canada
Orders US firms out of China? I was not aware that the president had such
authority.

~~~
jakewalker
He does not. Which doesn't make the headline inaccurate. But he does not have
that authority, and no one right-thinking believes that he does.

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ladyattis
I don't grasp why Trump thinks these kinds of messages are any good. Maybe
it's okay for his campaign but if we're talking the country, it's clear it
doesn't help. All it does is it make companies great and small have to
scramble for any kind of contingent plan to deal with him. I'm not a fan of
capitalism but I'm a fan of keeping myself fed. The more he meddles in these
affairs in such a haphazard way the more it makes the economy unstable. All I
can say is that he better pray to whatever god he believes in that it doesn't
wind up leading to a recession or a depression.

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derwiki
> It’s unclear what legal authority Trump would be able to use to compel U.S.
> companies to close operations in China or stop sourcing products from the
> country

By unclear, they mean no legal authority.

~~~
adamiscool8
Does Beijing have legal authority to compel the reverse, or does it rely on
appeals to patriotism and backchannel enforcement to get it done?

~~~
BubRoss
It's a dictatorship, they will do whatever they want.

~~~
theseadroid
I encourage you to watch this: The Rules for Rulers
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

TLDR: dictators can't do whatever they want.

