Trump tariffs push top PC makers Lenovo, HP, and Dell toward Saudi Arabia

[gamerk2]

It was treated as a third world country, hence looking away by the West on their "ingenuity" in "borrowing".
This is a good time to stop it, it is a big boy now. You want to trade with us? You pay for those technologies you borrow.

Except right now, the situation is reversed; most of the emerging tech is coming from China, not the US. The US also doesn't have *any* leverage in trade negotiations, given China exports literally everywhere.

The most likely outcome is the US is forced to cave, and the world moves on with an economic model less dependent on the US.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

But that's the thing: Capitalism demands the lowest possible cost of manufacturing, hence why companies have long done the tour of SE Asia.

What China figured out is the way to offset that is to heavily subsidize both R&D and manufacturing even as wages rise in order to keep their goods competitive on price. Which is something the US *can* do, but chooses not to.

I would say Capitalism incentivizes the lowest possible cost of manufacturing if all other things are equal. (which they often are hence the tour of SE Asia)

China has partially held on to manufacturing through subsidizes, but Chinese companies/labor have developed skills in manufacturing as well. Cheaper for the same quality is better, but if the labor in say India cannot meet the same quality or in some cases do the task at all, then the added cost of rising wages in China is worth it.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

"China can't develop anything on their own"; the implicit "America is superior" mindset that has to try and mitigate what everyone else does.

Yes, China steals a lot; EVERYONE does, including the US. But China spends a ton more on R&D then anyone else by a long shot, and it's starting to show in multiple emerging fields (AIs, Robotics, Battery tech, etc.). Meanwhile, the US is cutting its R&D nearly in half. Obvious outcome is obvious.

The US is going to lose (and I argue has lost in several fields) its technology edge over China.

Ironically, the recent bans against China getting the latest chips for "national security" has driven to develop their own fabs and become less dependent on the US.

Sure Chinese fabs are behind for now, but they are light years ahead of where they were just a few years ago. Talk about a backfiring plan.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Tesla's sales in China are cratering, and BYDs offerings are objectively superior. Not only that, BYD is already starting to displace Tesla throughout SE Asia, and even countries like Canada are starting to change their rules to allow BYD to do business.

And ignore anything Musk says; the last time his little AI robot was demoed, it was controlled by a human behind the curtain.

Well that’s probably because Tesla just replaced its best selling model in Q1, meaning it wasn’t even in production a good part of that time lol. But last year, the Model Y outsold any other car model in China and that was an increase from 2023. So no, they are beating BYD. If you look at total sales for BYD EVs, don’t forget to exclude the plug in hybrids because people love to cite those as EVs. BYD had 2.5M PHEV’s sold last year, and 1.76M EVs. These are dirt cheap, unsafe vehicles that no one outside of China wants. So yeah, as Musk said, China may take positions #2-10 but Tesla has the #1 place still.

 

[Rudyduu]

Here's an idea: they could make more of the goods in the largest consumer economy in the world and pay a living wage instead of using Asian slave labor to artificially depress prices.

Or, I mean, we could just keep doing what we've been doing for the last 40 years, sending our money overseas while our own people lay in destitution while our political opponents continue to become more powerful. Nothing could go wrong with that.....
You know, you read this "oh man trump supporters dumb huehuehue his plan bad" but I dont hear any ideas coming from anyone else that are not "lets use more of other people's money for more welfare and immigrants while cranking up debt like we've been doing". Like, what other paths are there? I'd love to hear a plan better then the tariffs but so far nobody has one.

Who's going to pay the trillions of dollars it's going to take to build all the factories and train all the workers?

Who said anything about welfare and immigrants? What other paths are there? Isn't that what the billionaires who claimed to have solutions are supposed to figure out? If I h all the resources of the US to figure it out I could, but for a fact I know that tariffs aren't it. The US government will have to subsidize the building of factories and training a workforce that has little experience with manufacturing.

The only thing the tariffs do is enrich the government's coffers, it does nothing else when there isn't competing domestic manufacturing. Paying a tariff is a lot cheaper than building a factory. If a factory was ever cheaper than a tariff the product would never be cost effective.

 

[gamerk2]

Ironically, the recent bans against China getting the latest chips for "national security" has driven to develop their own fabs and become less dependent on the US.

Sure Chinese fabs are behind for now, but they are light years ahead of where they were just a few years ago. Talk about a backfiring plan.

Yep, their x86 clones are about 2.5 generations behind Intel, and will probably catch them in about 5 years. China is throwing CRAZY money around to build up its tech industry from basically nothing; they're willing to throw hundreds of billions per year to remove their reliance on the US.

The *real* danger is once China removes its economic co-dependency, there's little reason for them to not take Taiwan (and possibly South Korea) by force, especially if the US is moving towards isolationism.

 

[dirtyferret]

This is what happens when you have a stable genius who thinks he's playing monopoly but can only mentally handle hungry hungry hippos

 

[tragicallyhip]

Predictably none is returning to the US. If your a high cost manufacturer your out of the game

 

[bviktor]

Trump tariffs are ALL about localizing manufacturing. There's nothing wrong with additional manufacturing locations being set up for the Middle East for that market. In fact, it's in businesses best interests to do the same, most just don't think that far ahead even though Covid should've prompted them to.

Yeah, too bad it doesn't work the way Trump wants them to, huh?

200 IQ moves over and over again.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Yeah, too bad it doesn't work the way Trump wants them to, huh?

200 IQ moves over and over again.

They will. Why do you think China and India produce their own cars, because they were just so good at manufacturing them 20 years ago?? No, because almost nobody wanted buy high tariff imports and the market was big. Manufacturing isn’t built up overnight lol. Besides, the article even admits the new plants in Saudi Arabia are meant for sales to the Middle East and Africa lol. Someone just labeled the reason along the way as “Trump” and the news picked that up and ran with it.

 

[airbornex]

In 10 years, Saudi Arabia will be making laptops, electric cars, and VR headsets while we're over here arguing if microwaves are woke.

 

[Axeia]

And by "R&D" you mean stealing western technology. China doesn't invent a damn thing.

China is innovating a lot more and a lot faster than the West. Imo rather than trying to kill their industry try to cover to the table about redoing the patent system.
China's system of do whatever is starting to fail now that some Chinese companies are getting their own stuff stolen because they have reached a level where R&D is getting expensive.
America's system of you can patent the most frivolous things. Patents are assigned even when there's prior art. Companies whos business model it is to buy the right to patents and make money in court.

Both systems are broken. Both countries should implement the same system but one that's different from what either has right now. China's system is killing companies that sink a lot of money into making big important steps. America's system is so broken the only winners are the lawyers and those companies that are so big and have so many patents they can prevent others from competing entirely.

Imo patents should have a fairly short duration they're valid for. Require some kind of proof that it took at least let's say $20.000 in testing or research to come up with and probably have a completely separate system for software Vs physical things. No nonsense like patenting the bounce effect to indicate you can't scroll any further.

 

[VectorVortec]

These are not your grand daddy's tariffs. The purpose of the tariffs, as the Trump admin has said over a thousand times, is to balance trade. If any country is running a negative trade balance with a country that has a smaller market, they should impose a tariff. If you can't see that, then do the mathematics. All economic equations since Kaldor (1940s or so) say the same thing. A negative trade balance ships manufacturing and money to the country with a positive trade balance. In the last 80 years, America has shipped $20 trillion in industry and money to every other country in world (or pretty close to that). By now the situation is so bad, that young adults in America can no longer buy a home. We need fair trade.

 

[TonyBony]

I should imagine that every nation on the planet, even those who trade a lot with the US, are secretly looking for ways to distance themselves from trading with the US, least of all because Trump has made it unstable & untrustworthy. The US destroyed the economy in 2007/8 & they're doing it again. No 3rd chances. Send the US to economy Coventry- Rightly so & much deserved. Trump's making China the worlds superpower, but he did go bankrupt multiple times, rip the US tax payer off & bankrupt a casino With a 'businessman like that at the helm.......!