Mere weeks ago, the United States announced it was set to impose a 25% tariff on over 800 categories of Chinese goods. These tariffs include nearly every component that goes into the manufacture of any piece of electronic hardware, from resistors to capacitors, semiconductors to microcontrollers, and even the raw components that are turned into printed circuit boards. These tariffs will increase the cost of materials for electronics, even if those electronics are ultimately manufactured in the United States because suppliers and subcontractors must source their materials from somewhere, and more often than not, that place is China.
Now, manufacturers are feeling the pinch. An email distributed by Moog Music last Friday has asked their supporters to contact their senators and representatives.
In the world of musical synthesizers, there is no bigger name than Moog. The company was founded in the 1950s manufacturing theremins, and in the 1960s, production moved to synthesizers. The famous Minimoog, launched in 1970, has been featured on tens of thousands of albums. Modern music simply wouldn’t exist without Moog synthesizers. After a buyout, mismanagement, and bankruptcy in the 1980s, the company was reborn in the early 2000s, moved into a beautiful factory in Asheville, North Carolina, and has gone on to produce some of the most popular synthesizers ever made.
The company’s statement says these new tariffs will, ‘immediately and drastically increase the cost of building our instruments, and have the very real potential of forcing us to lay off workers and could.. require us to move some, if not all, of our manufacturing overseas’. In a statement on Twitter, Moog says they source half their PCBs and a majority of other materials domestically, already paying up to 30% more than if the PCBs were sourced from China. However, because the raw materials for PCB manufacture are also sourced from China, board manufacturers for Moog’s synths will be forced to pass along the 25% tariff to their customers.
The threat of Moog being forced to move production of their instruments to China is real. Like cell phones, laptops, and other finished goods, synthesizers are not covered by the new tariff. As noted by Bunnie Huang, these tariffs have the perverse incentive of shifting US manufacturing jobs to China.
These tariffs have been a point of contention for the electronics and engineering communities. Anyone can easily pull up the distributor information from a Mouser or Digikey order and find the country of origin for an entire Bill of Materials. It has already been confirmed that most of the FR4 and other raw components that go into manufacturing PCBs in the United States come from Chinese suppliers. These items can be cross-referenced with the list of items that will be subject to a 25% tariff next week. Manufacturing electronics in the United States, even if you get your PCBs from US manufacturers and parts from US suppliers, will cost more in just a few short days.
So, maybe I should contact my Congressional representatives and ask them to keep the tariffs in place?
It’s gonna be good for business in Europe…
Canada and Mexico suddenly haven’t disappeared. Never mind all the countries south of that.
And Europe does not really need any US products. Asian companies will rush into the vacuum created by retaliatory tariffs on US products, that´s it. China´s technological lead will become more and more obvious, while US will be way behind for a while, Trump´s years won´t be easy to recover from.
For a long time in the EU, American products have been Chinese quality at European prices :-(
Sorry, but which vacuum? It’s been years (10+) since the last time I saw something “Made in USA”.
And even then, how would one know if “made in USA” means the united states or that certain city in Japan called Usa?
In general, people over here only buy American by accident.
Starting a trade war with everyone at the same time, what a brilliant idea!
If every one renounced there citizenship opensource/free/freesource people the next few days would be glorious and about those taxes stateless people dont pay them and how many of the rest of the world would ditch government as a result
As so wonderfully expressed in the Holy Grail movie!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
So good. Thanks for that.
That is the single stupidest thing I’ve read all year, and I’ve read Trumps tweets.
Sorry but citizenship is imposed on you, not something you are at liberty to take or leave. Look at the fate of those who have tried to be stateless. There are no countries in the modern world that accept it.
You can renounce citizenship once you have obtained citizenship elsewhere. Americans move to Singapore and other places, then renounce their US citizenship, in order to escape owing US income tax.
Where citizenship?
There citizenship!
” Manufacturing electronics in the United States, even if you get your PCBs from US manufacturers and parts from US suppliers, will cost more in just a few short days.”
Ah, cheap. Good thing while it lasted.
“These tariffs will increase the cost of materials for electronics, even if those electronics are ultimately manufactured in the United States because suppliers and subcontractors must source their materials from somewhere, and more often than not, that place is China.”
We built this situation with globalization and outsourcing in the first place. What did people think was going to happen when the economic drugs are taken away? Withdrawal pains.
+1
Another +1, US has not kept up with competitiveness in the correct manner. We did it by reducing costs by means of greed and thus it is now time to pay the piper. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the tariffs, people need to stop listening to media, facebook, and other garbage sources of data and dig in to the facts so they can take appropriate action. It’s no different then how we will continue to talk about the corrupt agreements for cheap shipping from China in to the US, but do nothing about it? We have made our bed for the last 50+ years, eventually we will have to lie in it….
Now where to get the “facts” from to dig into? Oooh. So many “alternative facts” around!
Thing is: globalization has its upsides and downsides, and blaming all on it smells like fake news too. Yes, this round was too capital-driven and we’re paying for it. No, I don’t agree at all with Trump’s approach to that problem.
[conspiracy theory mode]
Republicans were those in favor of free trade. The tariffs, while seeming protectionistic, seem to be pushing globalization. What if this outsourcing were “intended consequences”?
[/conspiracy theory mode]
*snort*
“Now where to get the “facts” from to dig into? ”
I never said it was easy. However, I have learned more about the different offices of our government in the last 4 years than I did in the previous 40. You just have to hunt for details. When I tried to qualify some statements made about race in different areas in the US for example, I learned how to shuffle through US Census data on their website and how to get similar data from school districts (school administrators have a surprisingly high amount of demographic data in their systems). I was very surprised by the results, because while I confirmed that I grew up in a decently diverse environment with a multicultural band of close friends, the overall country statistics did not match the county in which I lived in.
So, the data is out there, but you may have to spend some time learning about government/regulatory/state/local/administration systems to find it. Not only can I tell you that the high school near me is barely above average, I can now tell you exactly why it is by comparing it with above-average high schools in the area. (hint: poor tax revenue allocation by our career politician governor is a factor)
Yet Another +1. Our own lack of forethought put us in this situation. I propose a “strategic materials manufacturer” tax bracket with very low corporate rate. There would need to be some stringent controls on that (no foreign investment, entirely made on US soil, no foreign ownership, etc.). I think that would help US companies start and grow.
And I totally agree with you about the e-packet problem.
“We did it by reducing costs by means of greed..” I will have to try that.
I think you are trying to be sarcastic, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you missed that day in high school economics. It’s a very old strategy with decades of proven success. Simply google “reducing costs to improve profits”. There might be a few results…
In a civilized society there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to improving profits. For example throwing away a lot of advancement in labor relations and start employing child labor, with pre-1930’s work environments would do wonders for profits, with no guarantees of trickle-down, and plenty of assurances of flood-up. And just maybe the goods will be cheap.
I was guessing that if everyone in the company is really greedy, our costs will tend to zero.
What “economic drugs”, what does that mean? Are you referring to free trade?
These new protectionist policies and tariffs blocking free trade are causing the “withdrawal pains” your talking about. Companies aren’t just going to magically start moving production back to the U.S. where its more expensive because of these tariffs. They are already moving more production out of the country to avoid them.
They don’t need to “magically” move them, nor does any intelligent person expect that. The end goal is to persuade US companies to produce and expand to offset the cost difference, thereby decreasing cost to US customers.
Correct. So when we as a nation for whatever reasons decided to ship entire factories, design studios, and so forth overseas, did anyone even ask, what effect with this have on the US? How about decades down the line? Humanities strength isn’t in foresight. History makes that rather plain.
I certainly felt it had gone too far when the US Army decided import their black berets from China.
(That was back in the 1990’s)
Look up Ross Perot. Back in 1992 during a presidential debate He said this day would come. But everyone laughed at him and thought he was a clown. Don’t believe me, watch him say it himself in this recording of the debate here. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls I knew back then in 1992 that the Ftee trade Act was a bad ideal in its current form. It needed rules in place to prevent the things that has happened and is happening now from happening.
You will need magic if you expect manufacturing in the US to ever compete with manufacturing in China or other developing nations.
No amount of realistic expanding “to offset the cost difference” is going to change that unless Americas are going to start working in electronics component factories for less than minimum wage for some reason. Manufacturing isn’t moving back to the US anytime soon and these tariffs will just push it out faster.
Exactly, there is no “competing” to be done with a huge country with tons of resources and people many hours for very little that is currently experiencing massive economic growth. China’s standard of living is going to be too high soon enough to where the “cost offset” isn’t large enough. Maybe you shouldve placed tariffs on Cambodia, Vietnam, and India instead.
Competing is not the goal here. The labor cost is not an issue in a modern automated country.
The magic would be Chicoms letting the Yuan float to its market level, which is at least 2 or 3 times what it is now. Maybe much more. But they still want rigid control of a managed economy and are increasing controls again, which means they can never have an internal economy that supports their people.
It’ll take magic indeed. What we’re seeing is the complete opposite, which is the expected outcome: US manufacturing will suffer and will otherwise move elsewhere to reduce cost in order to save profitability. It’s already happening on a pretty big scale (not just Harley Davidson either). Also, tariffs makes American products pricier (less competitive) so sales are gonna go down if they stay. No one plans to stay and sell units at a loss while they gradually lose more clients to competitors. And no, not everything will magically become automated anytime soon, much less automated *and* located in the USA.
Harley was planning on moving anyway. It has nothing to do with tariffs.
Nothing to do with tariffs, except the $2200 increase of materials, then (retaliatory) import tariffs going to the EU (who are their main customer now), of course! Not that it’s an isolated case. Even if you look just into bikes, there’s Indian and Polaris considering doing the same now. The electronics world will shortly follow!
It is sort of free trade with the Communist Party and the military in China by way of proxy. But the people are living under a banking system that keeps the value of the Yuan very depressed. It is not a free market in terms of value of the products. The Chinese economy is in permanent crisis and requires continuous intervention by the rulers. Plus there is favoritism from the US postal service, and it is nearly impossible to ship things from the US to China, even to return goods for re-work or upgrade. Try to get stuff though Chinese Customs and you will see where free trade ends.
Permanent crisis and requires continuous intervention = to achieve their huge GDP growth. Could it collapse? Sure, but somehow they have been holding it together. The ghost cities slowly become massive human populated cities full of factories.
Yes, China customs is MUCH more difficult than US customs. It is costly to ship in, cheap to ship out.
Yes, you can ship subsidized packets from mainland China to the US for cheaper than you can send a letter across town.
I agree that globalization/outsourcing excesses are not healthy, but I really don’t understand your point.
With taxes on components only, an average greedy company will have more incentive to outsource.
Now, if they’d put taxes on assembled electronics, that would actually give incentive to do (automated) assembly in the US. I assume that hw/sw design is already not outsourced. As a huge bonus, it will give incentive to NOT buy China’s products, having the risk of backdoors.
Once everyone is used to “Assembled in US” again, then you can put taxes on some components, so that they get produced in the US too.
Honestly, sincerely, I can only see this as sabotage or madness. I can’t even see it as incompetence.
So if you see what was intended, and how the heck companies are going to work with that, please enlighten me.
“Moog says they source half their PCBs and a majority of other materials domestically, already paying up to 30% more than if the PCBs were sourced from China.”
So- They will be 5% cheaper when sourced from China. And yet they complain.
They have to relocate everything, which takes time, money and effort. They’ve also spent a bunch of time, money and effort making their stuff in the US, and now the promise of domestic manufacturing being encouraged has been broken while everyone manufacturing 100% overseas is left unaffected.
Relocate everything? Why? If they design everything here in the US and only do board manufacture and assembly in China, why do they need to relocate anything? Are they not able to continue sending an email with the gerbers and BOM? I’ve looked at many of the Moog products and it seems to me that their gross margins are probably at least 80%. I’m having a hard time with BOM + assembly cost being much more than $500 on a $5000 synth. $200 for all boards, so they’re complaining about 50 bucks? (1% of the sales price)
” why do they need to relocate anything? ”
a) You seem to be mistaken on what they do in the US.
b) The tariffs on China imports is only on parts, not completed goods. Manufacture the whole instrument in China and there’s no tariff to bring it into the US.
OK, what does Moog do in the US? What do they gain back by relocating ‘everything’? How is it a net positive by doing such a major thing?
> The tariffs on China imports is only on parts, not completed goods. Manufacture the whole instrument in China and there’s no tariff to bring it into the US.
Funny you would mention that. When producing in China the products are only cheap if you use components actually produced or at least available in large quantities in China. Contrary to what Brian claimed in the article there’s actually very little high end and speciality component manufacturing in China (apart for some raw material like FR4, chemicals, copper, etc.); if you want high quality (or “just” the same instead of only “equivalent”) components or components which are not already imported by the millions and you have to source them from outside China, that is actually freakingly expensive. Also often overlooked is the fact that shipping is either very slow (“ship”ing via slow boat) or expensive (unless you’re Apple who is flying in a whole plane fleet or two every day) and making sure you get what you pay for in the quality you need is also not quite as simple.
In a former company someone thought it would be a great idea to move manufacturing to China only to realise (after sinking some vast amount of money to prepare manufacturing and a few test runs) that it is much more expensive and slower than to manufacture in Western Europe in identical quality.
I’m waiting for when factories come on barges. Too expensive? Untie and float to the next cheapest country.
That sounds like a multi- billion dollar business model… lol
Well, that’s just the gross margin. Doesn’t include emp salaries, G&A, and overhead. And yeah, not a ton of synthesizers sold, somewhat limited market, not many competitors. But just seems phony to complain about tariffs when their business tax was lowered. They didn’t mention that. (which likely is 15% since they’re prolly a small business)
Congratulations! Another consumer f**-up well done!
While many will focus only on the increased cost of the tariff’s impacts, I would encourage everyone to review the reasons behind the tariffs, as they are not new, but just have been ignored by past presidents because it did not meet their personal agendas. We have a great system of government in the US, but we allow it to be corrupted by politicians every day.
For example, the office of the USTR found in April 2018 that China’s governmental practices “are unreasonable and discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce”. Under Section 301, there is a responsibility to monitor these actions and determine the level of burden on our internal economy and security. While most presidents would simply work with the WTO for additional support in these matters, it comes to no surprise that little action comes from the WTO. Thus, while the USTR did file a WTO case for China’s discriminatory actions, the president also chose to utilize the CFIUS to address particular Chinese investment strategies, one in particular being the “Made in China 2025” plans. (put in to place in 2015 during the previous presidents term, yet his plan was to just ignore it, while others concluded it could be a major threat to the future of technology in the US).
There’s a lot of people reading and commenting on this site that know so much about technology and engineering.
Sadly they don’t know anything about economics. Please keep writing these articles on the new trade tariffs Brian Benchoff, it’s important and interesting.
Youre so smart man
The smarts of yore!
So long as the topics are important and interesting, Brian should rewrite articles from PNR/CNN/FOX/TyT/NYT/WP/BBC on HaD.
…or should he limit it to hacks?
Maybe Moog, should get with the times and put touch screen controls. That alone would cut their costs by 60%
What people don’t realize is that the more we have to pay getting overseas, more opportunity in new company’s here making the same thing cheaper will start to crop up. Its just some labor pains before the payoff.
It would also cut their sales 60%.
It’s getting into the question of why the products we enjoy are the way they are? With economics being only part of it.
A Moog with touch controls, and no blind users at all. Might as well just get ZynAddSubFX (free) and have at it that way.
You clearly don”t understand Moog synths or their appeal. I’ve got three of them (Polymoog,Taurus 3 and a Voyager) and would not have bought them if they had a touch screen.
how does this affect digikey? does the tariff apply if digikey import then export the components?
It’s easy math. DigiKey and others use the tariffs to jack prices 25% across the board, or at least on every single thing made in China, and they hope we won’t notice.
You forgot their own secret cut of an additional 5%
OHNO, politics on Hackaday….sigh. Well, other than newly invented parts, I probably have stock for a lifetime of hacking (a building full).
One could hope this is merely a hardball negotiating tactic by a guy known for same – who did suggest at G7 that we simply drop all tariffs worldwide – and was laughed at for it. At least that’s what was reported in the “real” news – but it doesn’t fit with a lot of people’s cognitive biases, so I’ll just leave it here. After all…prediction is hard, especially about the future.
I’d rather not see politics here, it exposes too much pure irrationality in a group of people I otherwise like.
I agree, and they never look at the big picture because it would diffuse whatever little point they have decided to obsess over. The massive shifts in the Chinese currency’s value vs the USD could have more relevance than everything they have mentioned put together.
Don’t know if it’s avoidance so much as you can only do so much with a complicated subject in the limited amount of space, keeping in mind the audience reading aren’t economics majors, nor political scientists. There’s a reason HaD electronics articles are broken into small bits, and written in a certain way.
“suggest at G7 that we simply drop all tariffs worldwide – and was laughed at for it.”
And rightfully so. There are 188 other countries in the world who are not part of the G7.
Thing is, it doesn’t just affect US business. We spend about $60K a year with Digi-Key for our small business. Our batch size makes the convenience of a one stop shop for parts outweigh the small premium in prices. I spoke with a sales manager at Digi-Key the other day and asked what these tariffs would do to our buy price. He was evasive….
Not a hack in site…
RUN AWAY!!! RUN AWAY!!!
Hacking global economic systems.*
*Some of the stuff they come up with makes our hacks child’s play.
A US-based contract manufacturer that I use regularly just raised prices for _assembly_ by 25%. Coincidence?
Sounds like they’re taking this opportunity to screw you out of an extra 25%.
If they are just doing assembly work in the US with US workers there is no reason it would cost extra.
Unless they have a crystal ball and can determine pricing impacts for the future, they are just taking advantage of the hype and trying to make a buck in the mean time. Any CM raising prices right now due to the tariffs should be able to plainly detail the reasons for each assembly and/or process. If they can’t justify it past “it’s because of the tariffs” then they probably don’t deserve your business to begin with.
They were getting assembly done in China? Now importing the assembled PCBs back will be more expensive, assuming they’re not finished goods?
No, I’m pretty sure the assembly is done in the US. But being one of the cheaper options for small batch assembly, their main competition is China. They were about 10-20% more expensive after all was said and done, which for me was well worth the reduced risk and hassle. Unfortunately, it looks like they used the same logic for setting their prices.
Too bad for them, that this might put them into the range of the local mom & pop assemblers. Though I fear those use the same math.
Even if the quality is the same, at least its here. You can’t rely on an enemies resources in times of war.
There is no quick-fix for our current state, and no way we can keep doing business the same as always. The country is in serious debt, has been for a long time. You can’t keep borrowing money, to fix financial problems. It isn’t just the interest rate, it’s the other things we have to give into, to keep them low, or even to sweeten the deal, so we can get a loan. Sure, it’s cheaper to move jobs and business overseas, that’s where the money is, and cheaper labor too. We’ve been sending our tax money (interest payments), and paychecks (all the cheap gadgets and parts we buy and enjoy) for decades.
Sure, we are going to feel some pain for years, decades, to fix our current problems, but getting the country out of debt, a free again, from all the unreasonable concessions we made to borrow all that money will be worth it in the end. All those big businesses moving overseas started from a need to fill a market, then got greedy. All this will create the same needs, and new companies can pop-up to start replacing them. Many will get bought out by the big guys, and squash them, but some will hang in there and become stronger.
What’s going to happen, when we can’t borrow an more money, and can make interest payments on the Trillions we already owe? If you can’t make you house or car payment, they get taken away from you You file for bankruptcy, your assets are frozen, some you lose to the creditors, some you get to keep. I’m not sure what will happen to a country that can’t pay such a huge debt like ours, war maybe? And what are we going to fight with, if we remain dependent on imported components and materials? Sure, we’ve got a huge build up (if we haven’t sold, traded, or given away too much), but much is single use, and will run out quick enough. Who’s going to bail us out, or step in and help a country that defaults on it’s debts, when many of our allies also have debts of their own, from the same creditors?
Not all wars are fought on a battlefield. We’ve been under attack for decades, and most didn’t even notice. Those that knew, didn’t care, big profits for some, during wartimes, and it’s pretty easy to see who’s been getting fat.
Um, you realize that only 6.9% of US debt is held by China, right? So unless the Social Security Administration & the various retirement plans & private investors declare war, you’re being ridiculous. you really shouldn’t get your economics information from Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, or Glenn Beck.
http://www.mygovcost.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FY2016-A-ownership-US-government-national-debt.png
I think tariffs are a good think. Finally there will be an incentive to bring back some degree of electronics manufacturing to the US. Any adjustment will come with a degree of pain. But I think this will be for the better in the long term.
What incentive? It’s very much the inverse. It’s cheap to make elsewhere and with *zero* downsides. Make it in the USA and it’ll be 25% more expensive (so: higher prices, less sales, less profit, less competitive). So you’ll see exactly the opposite happening, much like you’re seeing metal transformation jobs are starting leave now.
We gave that globalization & free trade bull crap 20-30 years and it has proved to be a dismal failure. The transfer of our technology to other countries that then use it against us, the erosion of the middle class, increasing poverty, inflation, lack of good decent paying jobs e.tc. Only wall street and the ultra rich benefited.
Just because you or a bunch of others managed to make the current system work for them does not make it a good system overall. That’s the truth.
Besides there are reasons why things are more expensive to manufacture here. Because people/employees have rights that those that came before us fought hard for and that we very much value. Because we value clean air, water and do not want to turn the areas that we live and work in into polluted dumps.
Just because other nations don’t value the environment and have less red tape does not mean that we should take advantage of it. That pollution in their countries even if it doesn’t immediately affect us, still affects the planet as a whole.
Those that feel upset about the tariffs should move production over there. And if they’re not hypocrites they should pack their bags and take their families and go live in the same areas that house the factories that make the fr-4 materials and electrolytics. Bet the air and water there are just great.
I disagree with these tariffs not because they are bad but because they don’t go far enough. The US Administration needs to introduce tariffs on manufactured goods as well. If a product is not made in the US but is intended for the US market a huge tariff should be placed on it if not an outright ban.
halherta, good job on aggressing “P”.
Though, you know, he was not in favor of globalization …
He just argued that, BECAUSE these tariffs not only don’t go far enough, they will have work out in favor of outsourcing!
It’s not perfect but it is a start. This tariff business / protectionism isn’t going away even after Trump. Trump opened a can of worms, that future politicians will not be able to close regardless of how much money wall street gives them.
I hope that it will be tweaked in the future.
BTW I can’t stand Trump. This might be the only relatively sane move that he’s made so far
What exactly is the thought process behind keeping or bringing back manufacturing to the USA?
If the Chinese earn $3 an hour making an umbrella, an American would have to earn a similar shit wage or the umbrella would have to be MASSIVELY more expensive.
I think the illusion is that we could simultaneously have high paying jobs and cheap products.
Robots don’t solve this conundrum either. They can easily be shipped to another country.
We used to do it 50 years ago. I don’t see why it can’t be done now. There will obviously be a painful adjustment period, but I think that it will be better for everyone overall. And yes electronics will probably end up being more expensive but so what. I’d gladly pay 2-3 times for a electronic goods / computers if its built well and locally. And I live on a modest income. It’d be just like buying a Mac! We don’t need to buy new computers every 3 years.
“What exactly is the thought process behind keeping or bringing back manufacturing to the USA?”
Hmmm, let’s see. We’re here, jobs are there. In other words labor isn’t as mobile as everything else. The day employees are as mobile as their jobs is when the issues of “made where” go away.
The US still has allies? I mean, besides Russia? At this point I’d rather order PCBs from China than the USA.
Not sure what is the big fuss all about, here is what EETIMES has to say( posted today ) : Chip Industry Posts Another Monthly Sales Record https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333439
business as just usual and everybody is making money .
on the other hand EETIMES wrote : Chip Industry on Edge as Trade War Heats Up :https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333396
But on the other hand EETIMES wrote: U.S. Pulls Back From Brink of Trade War With China
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333309
but on the other hand ….
Just a datapoint..
I work for a contract manufacturer that makes PCBs and PCB assemblies in India. Companies that used China are now using us more.
For those companies, nothing has changed. India gets the parts at the previous prices.
Basically the same for Canada, Hungary, and Mexico.
Damn straight. Everyone freaking out for no reason.
This is we need more protectionism not less. If it’s bought in the US it needs to be made in the US, otherwise put a 35-45% tariff on it….if not an outright ban.
Showing that we aren’t as good or able to compete as we claim to be.
We setup the trade organizations that largely govern internatinoal trade. Our companies are the ones that setup shop in the one time 3rd world country of china (and others) giving them access to modern industrial technology and practices. Our companies walked out of the US to in order to increase profits, while we allowed them to do it. At the same time we allowed them to leave and export problems of environmental destruction, child labor, slave labor, political corruption, etc.
Tarrifs do nothing that will convince a company in the US to do anything other than take their factories overseas where there are larger, cheaper, and ultimately more profitable markets are.
.. and for that matter we have no real interest in buying American. Its been gamed from the start, with made in america with foreign parts being the early version. It doesn’t matter where stuff is made or what gets purchased across a border.. its our innovation that has served us in the past. Now that we’ve voluntarily given up on manufacturing of solid goods we should be relying on that innovation even more instead of pretending that all the blue collar jobs are going to magically re-appear. We dont have the will, training, or desire to go back to those jobs.
> These tariffs will increase the cost of materials for electronics, even if those electronics are ultimately manufactured in the United States because suppliers and subcontractors must source their materials from somewhere, and more often than not, that place is China.
I call bullshit unless you’re seriously claiming that Moog sources their components from some blind auctions of Chinese components or the share of the FR4 costs in the BOM is ridiculously high. Quality components are coming from pretty much anywhere but China, e.g. LEDs from Taiwan or Germany, Caps and crystals from Japan, Memory and ICs from South Korea…
Sounds like a cheap excuse to move production to somewhere else or lay off some people… It’s certainly stupid to start a trade war with China and will have a noticeable effect but those dire claims and forecasts smell like hidden agenda…
>In the world of musical synthesizers, there is no bigger name than Moog.
Sure, if you discount Roland, Yamaha, and Korg.
Then again, it’s been a while since I bothered with the music industry at all, so they may have gotten bigger. But for the most part, Moog is a specialist company that mainly makes analog synthesizers. While Analog is making a big resurgance, there are still tons more digital synths out there.
Currently, the “cheaper” domestic products reflect countless American jobs. For a given company to compete, they’re going to have to produce abroad, which means the *LOSS* of American jobs. THAT is what Moog et al are complaining about. Short term and long term, these tariffs are hurting America. You seem to be OK with that.
I’ll make an analogy here.
At some point, some bad guys offered America (and not only) a smoke. And she liked it. She got a high; everything looked amazing. That’s how I started smoking too. So America kept smoking, more and more.
Now, she’d like to stop, but it’s hard. People complain that “Short term and long term, these tariffs are hurting America” because they can say anything, not because it’s true.
In fact any withdrawal symptoms hurt, but all sort of nasty things happen if you don’t stop.
(This reminds me of the great song by BVSMP: “Crack kills, if you don’t stop” yea!)
So just like a long-term smoker, America now has problems. Sure some don’t care but it does hurt most people.
Sure the cure might hurt. Chemotherapy? Surgery? All pain, trying to fix what was done because of weakness and stupidity long time ago.
Is it better to just keep smoking? Bury your head in sand? Maybe, if you’re sure to die soon.
Otherwise, I think the pain is worth it, if there’s a chance to get better.
Assembled PWBs could be subject to tariffs to give US manufacturers an edge. But tariffs on bare PCBs and general components would become a serious disincentive for US companies to continue manufacture in the US.
There are hybrid PWBs with embedded components. They look like bare pcbs but have capacitances and/or resistances buried inside the pcbs. Either etched or buried discrete SMT components that are soldered on inner layers later embedded for space, protection, impedance, footprint and precision requirements, etc.. No traces of embedded components from the outside of the PCBs
If the assembled PWBs but not bare PCB’s are made subjects to tariffs, where would the line be drawn? Reason for the question is that we, Shipco Circuits Ltd, are now making such PCBs for US customers in the US with the manufacturing takes place in China. Hopefully embedded passive components are excluded, to save competitiveness of leading-edge US electronic OEMs.