The age of cheap Chinese stuff is ending in the USA?

Same. Discussion quality on mainstream socials is awful. I only have X, but hate how political it is right now. I'm there only to connect to the tech scene, but i'm usually cringing while scrolling.


Back to the original topic.
Former Biden Official Says President Will Issue De Minimis Proposal Before End of Year

The Biden Administration in September announced that it would take executive action against the Section 321 trade “loophole,” which is currently facilitating the entry of 4 million parcels into the U.S. consumer market each day, according to data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). About half of the 1.4 billion de minimis shipments expected this year will contain textile and apparel products, with companies like Shein and Temu capitalizing heavily on the trade exemption.

“This dramatic increase we’ve seen over the past bunch of years in the volume of cargo coming in under the [de minimis] exemptions has just kind of created this very large universe that’s extraordinarily challenging for CBP to deal with,” Manning said.

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While the White House has made its intentions known that it plans to file a NPRM before Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump is sworn in in January, the review and implementation process could be lengthy, according to the former administration official.

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I think the next administration will carry these actions forward. I think we will see the end of tarrif exemptions on e-things as early as january, as late as next summer.

neptronix said:

Most western countries are gonna ban tiktok eventually because they know China's government is using it for foreign surveillance

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Tariffs and trade wars seem to be quite counter-productive. Instead of stimulating the local development and innovation, they help to maintain the status quo for rich, fat corpos who refuse to change and just demand govt protection. And with the protection in place, they can continue to exist with their inefficiency, inertia and wastefullness. In the end customers pay for it all, but there's no permanent benefit - the protected companies will just rely on further protection and threaten to fold without taxpayer money.

rafalg said:

Tariffs and trade wars seem to be quite counter-productive

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rafalg said:

maintain the status quo for rich, fat corpos who refuse to change and just demand govt protection

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rafalg said:

they can continue to exist with their inefficiency, inertia and wastefullness

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rafalg said:

the protected companies will just rely on further protection and threaten to fold without taxpayer money

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counter-productive for who?

offGridDownUnder said:

counter-productive for who?

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Counterproductive for everybody. Best is for each place to focus on what it's best and most efficient at doing, for reasons of resource availability, education/skill sets, climate, culture, population size or whatever.

Would you want to live in a place like Iceland or Réunion, if there was a heavy surcharge (over and above shipping cost) on everything that wasn't a local product?

Likewise, do you feel like it's a good idea to try to grow foods in Oz that don't want to grow there, because tariffs make those foods too expensive to import?

I think folks need to get their heads around the idea that national borders exist to contain legal and political systems, and aren't there to restrict the movement of people or goods.

rafalg said:

Tariffs and trade wars seem to be quite counter-productive. Instead of stimulating the local development and innovation, they help to maintain the status quo for rich, fat corpos who refuse to change and just demand govt protection.

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It's basically a way to tax people while claiming to achieve something, yes.

rafalg said:

And with the protection in place, they can continue to exist with their inefficiency, inertia and wastefullness. In the end customers pay for it all, but there's no permanent benefit - the protected companies will just rely on further protection and threaten to fold without taxpayer money.

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Here are costs that Chinese companies don't have, but American companies do:

- Time spent creating, defending, and improving intellectual property
- Inability to steal someone else's intellectual property
- Money spent remediating environmental effect of the business, in the form of tax, penalties, environmental assessments, paper shuffling, whitewashing, bribing politicians, etc
- Higher shipping costs since they aren't subsidized by your government like China's are. ( literally your tax dollars go towards disadvantaging you )
- Legal liability for the product
- The cost of customer service
- Strong possibility of being sued or fined for creating a bad product
- Warranty for product, handling returns etc
- Workplace safety regulations
- Labor rights ( an American business can't just install suicide nets and go on about their day )
- The inability to use forced labor ( this change is very recent, btw )
- The inability to have a supply chain that includes a significant amount of slavery ( not illegal but the media will get in your way )
- Carbon taxes ( China is still marked as a 'developing nation' in global climate treaties and is therefore exempt, you aren't )
- Way higher costs for property
- Way higher labor costs
- Way higher costs for materials

An American business that wants to build things can be hyper efficient and follow the rules and still get beat by Chinese manufacturing for the reasons above. They've had all kinds of unfair advantages for decades.

It's a real problem and nobody wants to entertain solutions for, except tariffs, because they're easy to enact.

American big business abuses workers, exploits loopholes, takes taxpayer subsidies, and externalizes negative consequences just as passionately as Chinese big business, and to the utmost limits that are imposed on them. They don't need to be protected. And let's be clear; they're the chief beneficiaries of protective tariffs.

I mean many of neptronix's points are right, western companies undoubtedly have higher costs of operating but.. this is the reality. And if we have a government that can provide protection to the people or businesses in distress - thats great, this is where administration can be useful and helpful. But i would expect the goverment to step in and help in temporary difficulties, unforeseen situations, disasters etc - just provide the assistance necessary to survive the tough time and step back afterwards.
But no amount of government regulations, tariffs and money throwing will change the reality permanently. China is there and is not going to disappear in a month or two. And pretending it's not there will cost a lot of money that everyone will pay to keep the illusion going on a little longer. Tariffs will hide the problem for a while, subsidies will keep the expensive businesses going but in the end they will be even less able to compete with the rest of the world. Sanctions on China will not stop them from developing their own technology, maybe slow down a little but afterwards they will come out even stronger and more independent.

They're wiping the floor already with western EV producers. Not by price, but by quality, technology and design too. Forcing old carmakers to lower the prices - after we've been told you have to spend $50K to buy any usable car and it's impossible to get any cheaper. Now you can have a chinese one for half of that. I'm not going to discuss the quality difference because it's hard to find an european car that will last 5 years without major failure. Western carmakers just need a kick in the balls to sober up, not further cushy protection from the consequences of their incompetence.

rafalg said:

cushy protection from the consequences of their incompetence.

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That's probably the biggest issue with things today (probably has been throughout history?); too many people that don't need (or deserve) it have this available, while what they have done to others in the process isn't countered by help to those others.

There are for sure smarter ways to use public money than just handing them out... my govt did a lot to support photovoltaics, sponsoring heat pumps and so on - in the end they're just paying importers of chinese stuff. Some of this money goes to chinese factories, but probably the most stays in the hands of local 'producers' who just assemble the chinese kits and slap on labels on them. And nobody is even interested in servicing this stuff, just use it for few years and when breaks - trash it. The prime minister will buy you a new toy. Recently there was an idea to hand out money for buying ebikes because you know, people can't buy an ebike by themselves. It was ditched, luckily, but you could imagine tons of useless trash that this idea would generate (like rental scooters lying abandonned in the bushes). And so on. So maybe we don't need tariffs after all, maybe it's enough to be less stupid.

rafalg said:

maybe it's enough to be less stupid.

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To that, given the typical people out there that I see, I can only say GLWT.

rafalg said:

Tariffs and trade wars seem to be quite counter-productive. Instead of stimulating the local development and innovation, they help to maintain the status quo for rich, fat corpos who refuse to change and just demand govt protection.

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Of course. And by giving an advantage to US companies, those companies will manufacture lower quality products and charge more for them. Indeed, a capitalist system demands that, Their incentive will no longer be to make the best/cheapest products - it will be to make product just OK enough to sell in the face of a crippling tariff from overseas.

One result of this is that the US will become something of a technological backwater. No one will purchase lower quality products from the US. Instead, China/Malaysia/Japan/India etc will buy and sell their superior products to each other for less money.

neptronix said:

Here are costs that Chinese companies don't have, but American companies do
………
- Carbon taxes ( China is still marked as a 'developing nation' in global climate treaties and is therefore exempt, you aren't )
- Way higher costs for property
- Way higher labor costs
- Way higher costs for materials

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you seem to have forgot the higher energy costs, OiL, Gas, and Electricity .

actually electricity prices and fuel prices are quite similar in China and the US. Europe stands out with high energy costs. Natural gas is cheaper in the US than in China.

rafalg said:

actually electricity prices and fuel prices are quite similar in China and the US. Europe stands out with high energy costs. Natural gas is cheaper in the US than in China.

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Really ?……electricity…
Average 16.0 c/kWh……BUT, …..Check Ca at 31.0 c/kWh…
vs.. China: residential electricity prices 2024 | Statista
China at < 8.0 c/kWh

I pay 11 cents/kWh here in Utah, USA. We have a lot of manufacturing here compared to most states, go figure.

neptronix said:

I pay 11 cents/kWh here in Utah, USA. We have a lot of manufacturing here compared to most states, go figure.

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Do you have electric heat in your apartment? It's at least 3x that in NYC (including all the fees). Yesterday I was at a fuel stop on the Merritt pkwy in CT. Looked at the price of EV charge stand ( never looked before), $0.59 / kwh. What does that convert to in price/ gal gasoline? Regular is around $2.80/ gal around here.

I was talking about industrial electricity prices, which are significantly lower in the US than residential prices, and around 8c / kWh
some sources give cost estimate at China also at the same level, for example
but it's hard to say if these numbers are directly comparable

Nope, we use natural gas which is even cheaper.
Our gas is under $3/gal for regular octane currently.

Google seems to think a gallon of gasoline is 33.70kwhrs. I'm not sure if that accounts for the efficiency difference ( electric is easily 2-3x more efficient with the energy you put into it than a gasoline engine )

neptronix said:

Nope, we use natural gas which is even cheaper.
Our gas is under $3/gal for regular octane currently.

Google seems to think a gallon of gasoline is 33.70kwhrs. I'm not sure if that accounts for the efficiency difference ( electric is easily 2-3x more efficient with the energy you put into it than a gasoline engine )

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This number is frequently cited from the US department of energy and/or the EPA, I believe. It's not that it's outright wrong, but as you can probably imagine, there's a thousand different variables that go into those kind of calculations.

neptronix said:

An American business that wants to build things can be hyper efficient and follow the rules and still get beat by Chinese manufacturing for the reasons above.

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Or maybe the West has just been outsmarted by ignoring the competition for too long..
It seems the Chinese have simply developed better manufacturing methods.
…watch..!

Just few years ago we have seen how Tesla fumbled around trying to get any production organized, all the chaos and drama involved. It was quite clear they have no competence in production process, especially production of cars, and even today their output is of questionable quality. During all that time Elon claimed he is the most knowledgeable person in the world regarding car manufacturing. Yes, of course - if you ignore basically everyone else. I dont know if this is a representative example of the western industrial prowess (hopefully not), but i'd say it's harder and harder to find anyone with the right skills and knowledge. Meanwhile in China ...

Elon musk is a pig at the public trough…..

And likely selling defense secrets to China….

At least something that can be sold to China This will be the top export product.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it looks like we may see a +10% tariff on China and +20% tariff on Canada and Mexico.
Donald Trump says he will hit China, Canada and Mexico with new tariffs

Buy now!

I am calling it Trumpflation.