Nobody is going to claim that a 25% tariff won't destroy a trading relationship, of course it will. That's a monster tariff. It's big enough and wide enough it will have substantial effects if it's held.
The issue is who actually wins, who loses, what are the after-effects etc..
All things considered, China will be the bigger loser here, but America doesn't stand much to gain, other than some overall strategic leverage.
iPhone's won't be any cheaper, and Apple likely won't be making more money over this, rather, they'll possibly have a more resilient supply chain, and America will maintain more power in the ensuing balance.
If anything 'the rest' of SE Asia is probably the winner in all of this. Which is fine.
Edit: I should add, if 25% tariffs are maintained, all of America will soon start to see that hit them personally; there will be a material lift in consumer prices that will be noticeable even at the consumer level. I don't think it will be a 1970's OPEC shock, but we'll see it. It takes a long time to realign supply chains, and even then a lot of it is not very amenable to shifting away from China. It will be interesting to see what happens when this goes from an 'abstraction' to materially popping into people's lives.
It's already hitting my business hard as we're scrambling to figure out what to do, and this reality will soon trickle into the lives of regular people.
I actually do support some kind of trade re-negotiation with China, and the 25% tactic is in some ways a nice manoeuvre, the problem is, it might have to be a bluff because it's going to hit the economy very hard.
> All things considered, China will be the bigger loser here, but America doesn't stand much to gain, other than some overall strategic leverage.
That is what it has been about. Geopolitical dominance and leverage. Your statement is like "by preparing for Olympics America doesn't stand to gain much, except a few medals, global recognition of sporting prowess, and a healthy cultural of staying fit".
Apple will probably actually end up losing a significant amount of money over this. They're likely to lose a lot of their market share in China, not because of any explicit government measures against them, but because Chinese people are getting angry at the American government's trade war against China, and will avoid prominent American brands. China has a massive internal market, similar in scale to the US or Europe, so losing out there is a significant blow to a company like Apple.
Nobody is going to claim that a 25% tariff won't destroy a trading relationship, of course it will. That's a monster tariff. It's big enough and wide enough it will have substantial effects if it's held.
The issue is who actually wins, who loses, what are the after-effects etc..
All things considered, China will be the bigger loser here, but America doesn't stand much to gain, other than some overall strategic leverage.
iPhone's won't be any cheaper, and Apple likely won't be making more money over this, rather, they'll possibly have a more resilient supply chain, and America will maintain more power in the ensuing balance.
If anything 'the rest' of SE Asia is probably the winner in all of this. Which is fine.
Edit: I should add, if 25% tariffs are maintained, all of America will soon start to see that hit them personally; there will be a material lift in consumer prices that will be noticeable even at the consumer level. I don't think it will be a 1970's OPEC shock, but we'll see it. It takes a long time to realign supply chains, and even then a lot of it is not very amenable to shifting away from China. It will be interesting to see what happens when this goes from an 'abstraction' to materially popping into people's lives.
It's already hitting my business hard as we're scrambling to figure out what to do, and this reality will soon trickle into the lives of regular people.
I actually do support some kind of trade re-negotiation with China, and the 25% tactic is in some ways a nice manoeuvre, the problem is, it might have to be a bluff because it's going to hit the economy very hard.