17 ms·

DigiKey's Tariff Resources

222 points by nativeit 2y ago

fragmede 2y ago
Says semiconductors have a 50% extra tarriff. That includes LEDs, presumably. I'm trying to do some things with LEDs, and ouch.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  I guess there's always Goodwill, landfill. You can pull PCBs, desolder components.
- jayyhu 2y ago
  AFAIK the Section 301 tariff (and increases) only applies to parts imported from China/HK. There are lots of manufacturers on DigiKey that make their parts from elsewhere where these tariffs are not assessed. As a data point, I recently bought a bunch of Lite-on LEDs on DK, their COO was Thailand, and I wasn't tariffed for those parts.
- fecal_henge 2y ago
  Similarly my hobby involving ship to shore cranes is going to be painful. Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. If this is already imported and paid for then it should be exempt right? The page doesnt state what happens to foreign customers. Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
  - alibarber 2y ago
    I’d also like some insight on the foreign buyer bit as DigiKey is by far the best and most reliable supplier to my part of the world despite being the other side of an ocean. I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by DigiKey, and don’t think I pay any US taxes on the shipment. By intuition I’d think whatever US tariff wouldn’t apply, but these things don’t exactly make sense a lot of the time. Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
    - lysace 2y ago
      Same. Most credible alternative in Europe: Distrelec/RS Components (both part of RS Group).
    - foft 2y ago
      Ouch, if that is the case this is only going to boost the non US suppliers. Has anyone tried lcsc.com? Digikey and mouser are great but if all semiconductors go up 50% that is a problem.
      - nativeit 2y ago
        I've used lcsc.com, and aside from their website being a little janky, it was fine. I would normally have used Digikey/Mouser, but I needed a few parts they didn't stock, but LCSC did. Then I found that a bunch of the other parts I was ordering were significantly cheaper from LCSC, and ultimately ordering everything I could from them cut the bottom line price of my BOM in half. That said, shipping was $40-50 for one small box with around 50 components (varying quantities), so if you do order from LCSC it's best to order as much as possible within the same order, since the shipping is gonna be a significant chunk of the cost for any order <$1K. It took a few weeks to arrive using DHL, where Digikey/Mouser both generally deliver within a week (domestic shipping, I'm in N. Carolina). TLDR; I would recommend LCSC if you are buying enough such that the per-part savings offsets the significantly higher shipping costs, and you don't mind waiting a ~10-14 days for your parts to arrive. I personally still use domestic suppliers for most parts, but when I have a larger BOM and I'm not under a deadline, I'll go with LCSC. If you're ordering from the US, you should also be aware that Trump's tariffs still apply, so be prepared to pay at least 10% more for everything (some items--things like medical equipment, batteries, and semiconductors--are significantly higher, up to 100%). There may also be a processing fee levied by the shipping carrier if they collect the tariffs on your behalf. As I understand it, LCSC includes a customs declaration form with the shipment, and it's your responsibility to pay any duties or tariffs as the importer.
      - alibarber 2y ago
        Yes it does seem a bit strange - I guess the goal here is to encourage them to source and sell me a quality American SMD diode at less than $(0.006 + 10%) per unit. That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax' is not. My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs don't look very different from some of them in my non-US locale, which I would have to pay anyway) Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around for other suppliers.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    You don't pay for how much the item in the store costs, you pay how much it will cost to restock it (see also: petrol/gasoline prices changing throughout the week - it's because there's a fixed charge to refill the tanks, regardless of how much goes in).
  - supahfly_remix 2y ago
    Out of curiosity, can you tell me more about your hobby that involves ship to shore cranes? Or, is this an indirect way of saying that your hobby involves transoceanic shipping? This is Hackernews, so it could plausibly be either.
    - hobs 2y ago
      A third interpretation is this is a joke and they are talking about a business they want to make work without the tariffs, but yeah might have flown over my head too.
  - braiamp 2y ago
    > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if there's a competitive market.
    - whoisthemachine 2y ago
      That's the minimum they charge. The maximum they charge is how much they think customers are willing or have to pay. If the general mood is that tariffs will cause inflation, then price gouging will likely occur.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume they've declared all the goods and in that case yes. > Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers? If you re-export goods that was previously imported without using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite annoying if you import large quantities and sell small fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis. Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform the import declaration to free them for general use. This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from the bonded warehouse. The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey which sell a lot of their goods abroad. There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically smuggle goods into the country. This also affects who's performing the import declaration. Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything more fancy than letting someone else handle the import declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are companies that offer this as a service. Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has to handle this goods deeply.
34679 2y ago
I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now. Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs. I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has anyone else here had any experience with this yet?
- nixgeek 2y ago
  Likely yes although I’m not sure if the administration has fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from $800 USD. With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee themselves for processing something through Customs for you, paying the tariff for you so the package isn’t delayed and then enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering your goods.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    I don’t know if UPS going into the states is the same as Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of taxes.
    - mmastrac 2y ago
      USPS and Canada Post were the most cost-effective way to deal with customs for the longest time. Unsure if that's the case anymore.
      - slavik81 2y ago
        Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300. It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by far the cheapest option. [1]: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng.html https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng....
gfkclzhzo 2y ago
I miss the 'no new taxes' generation of conservatives
- Gormo 2y ago
  I miss conservatives.
  - selykg 2y ago
    Not a conservative but I can respect the old school conservatives to some extent. Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in my experience.
    - bsimpson 2y ago
      I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party transformed from libertarians into a personality cult overnight because some weirdo won an election. Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone else in Washington. I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest. Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them instead?
      - boardedupshack 2y ago
        I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.
        Gormo 2y ago
        > I think Sanders would have unified No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.
mmastrac 2y ago
I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both. When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty clear. And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get. I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other. While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate. Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 2y ago
  Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US infrastructure.
  - mmastrac 2y ago
    I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So much procedure and process is based on reliability.
    - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 2y ago
      [dead]
    - gnuloonix 2y ago
      I mean, we're not exactly jazzed about getting measles or being homeless over here...
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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neom 2y ago
These guys have been doing something similar for just Canada <> US, was surprised to see this stuff popping up: https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-relief-navigating-us-trade-impact https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-re...
woile 2y ago
Trump is going the peronism route Argentina took. Where protectionism was implemented for the sake of... Making the people in power richer. You cannot just tariff if your industry is not there, people end up paying higher prices. Next thing you'll hear is that America is producing but actually they will be assembling (for this you'll need to get along well with China). Crazy that Milei and Trump get along well mainly because of their social policies, but economic policies are so different. The US needs only two allies, Mexico and Canada, the only countries it has borders with, and instead Trump is just creating hate there.
yalogin 2y ago
Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US. By that definition the administration has no idea what level of tariffs will make this happen. Setting up manufacturing in the US for any item is not cheap - we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. On top of that the cost of manufacturing is many fold compared to china, India, Bangladesh or Taiwan. So 25% or 10% is still not in anyway going to force manufacture to come back. Tariffs have to be at an insane level to justify bringing manufacturing back. My worry is that the administration is may be prepared to go there. That will cause a deep deep recession across the whole globe. Even then it will take a couple of decades to have meaningful manufacturing in the US
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  > we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. That, I believe, is one of the reasons why the H-series and E-series exist in the United States, along with the L visa. It gives you the opportunity to bring foreigners into the United States, either for a limited (but finitely-extendable) period of time, or permanently. You can argue that the current forms of those visas do not work, but that is not my point: My point is that the above reason is why the visas exist. To bring my point back around to tariffs: I think making the above-mentioned visas harder to get goes against the purpose of the tariffs. If you want manufacturing etc. brought back here, then make it easy (or easier) to get the knowledgeable folks who you need to train the folks who will do the manufacturing here.
  - thephyber 2y ago
    Half of the administration primarily wants to onshore all the things. The other half wants to primarily kick out foreigners to reduce competition with domestic workers. They don’t have a plan, only hopes.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      They don't have hopes either, only impulses. Pure id.
  - 2y ago
seltzered_ 2y ago
Related: Bunnie Huang on us tariffs impacting educators from 2018: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2018/new-us-tariffs-are-anti-maker-and-will-encourage-offshoring/ https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2018/new-us-tariffs-are-a...
rajnathani 2y ago
Given that DigiKey pretty much ships out all of its components from their US warehouses (at least when ordering from India and Canada), but that most of the components are actually made in China or elsewhere, that we could expect them to set up a warehouse outside the US for in order to avoid these tariffs affecting DigiKey customers not based in the US.
jenadine 2y ago
I am not sure I understand the implications of these tariff. Basically it means that products are becoming more expensive for people in the US. How is that a good thing for them? I understand this can help some US company to sell more products in their country, but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.
- bux93 2y ago
  Tariffs are just a tax. Similar to a sales tax, but it needs to be paid on import. To be clear, it's a tax on your own citizens, not foreign exports. If a product is cheaply produced in another country, and your domestic industry cannot match that price, your domestic industry might disappear. Suppose that other country is subsidizing their industry, then it's quite unfair, and it legitimizes supporting your own industry either by your own subsidies or retaliatory tariffs. As they say, to level the playing field. If the domestic industry is already dead, tariffs won't magically resurrect it. For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development. All that time, those taxes are basically just costing consumers money. They need to be kept in place up until the new factories come online AND are paid off. This can take decades. Will those tariffs still be there? Will those other countries have ALSO invested? Those uncertainties make it hard to invest in a dead/dying industry, even with tariffs in place. One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term. Tariffs can work to retaliate against, and discourage, dumping. They can play a role in protecting vital industries. But arbitrarily imposing them for political points is a dangerous gambit.
  - cudgy 2y ago
    “One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.” I don’t think it’s this simple. The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits. Furthermore, it depends on how the revenue from tariffs were used. If revenue from tariffs is used to lower taxes for lower income citizens, it would be effectively a progressive tax.
127 2y ago
I wonder if this also applies to Mouser. I've been buying pretty much all of my components from there, but if it becomes much more expensive I might have to just source from China and learn to read their datasheets. Mouser has much better customer experience and Texas Instruments, Analog Devices etc. have much better chips and docs, but at some point the 10x less expensive Chinese clones (and these days even new Chinese made chips) will just become the rational choice. (With the assumption that this will be just the start of a trade war around chips)
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
- pwg 2y ago
  There are also tariffs being applied to goods from China, so "just source from China" may not allow you to avoid the tariffs.
- hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
  I think tariff targets Chinese goods in general. Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity. Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
  - FreebasingLLMs 2y ago
    > Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics. That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth shut".
    - hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
      It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact, talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.

222 points by nativeit 2y ago

Says semiconductors have a 50% extra tarriff. That includes LEDs, presumably. I'm trying to do some things with LEDs, and ouch.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
I guess there's always Goodwill, landfill. You can pull PCBs, desolder components.
jayyhu 2y ago
AFAIK the Section 301 tariff (and increases) only applies to parts imported from China/HK. There are lots of manufacturers on DigiKey that make their parts from elsewhere where these tariffs are not assessed. As a data point, I recently bought a bunch of Lite-on LEDs on DK, their COO was Thailand, and I wasn't tariffed for those parts.
fecal_henge 2y ago
Similarly my hobby involving ship to shore cranes is going to be painful. Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. If this is already imported and paid for then it should be exempt right? The page doesnt state what happens to foreign customers. Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
- alibarber 2y ago
  I’d also like some insight on the foreign buyer bit as DigiKey is by far the best and most reliable supplier to my part of the world despite being the other side of an ocean. I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by DigiKey, and don’t think I pay any US taxes on the shipment. By intuition I’d think whatever US tariff wouldn’t apply, but these things don’t exactly make sense a lot of the time. Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
  - lysace 2y ago
    Same. Most credible alternative in Europe: Distrelec/RS Components (both part of RS Group).
  - foft 2y ago
    Ouch, if that is the case this is only going to boost the non US suppliers. Has anyone tried lcsc.com? Digikey and mouser are great but if all semiconductors go up 50% that is a problem.
    - nativeit 2y ago
      I've used lcsc.com, and aside from their website being a little janky, it was fine. I would normally have used Digikey/Mouser, but I needed a few parts they didn't stock, but LCSC did. Then I found that a bunch of the other parts I was ordering were significantly cheaper from LCSC, and ultimately ordering everything I could from them cut the bottom line price of my BOM in half. That said, shipping was $40-50 for one small box with around 50 components (varying quantities), so if you do order from LCSC it's best to order as much as possible within the same order, since the shipping is gonna be a significant chunk of the cost for any order <$1K. It took a few weeks to arrive using DHL, where Digikey/Mouser both generally deliver within a week (domestic shipping, I'm in N. Carolina). TLDR; I would recommend LCSC if you are buying enough such that the per-part savings offsets the significantly higher shipping costs, and you don't mind waiting a ~10-14 days for your parts to arrive. I personally still use domestic suppliers for most parts, but when I have a larger BOM and I'm not under a deadline, I'll go with LCSC. If you're ordering from the US, you should also be aware that Trump's tariffs still apply, so be prepared to pay at least 10% more for everything (some items--things like medical equipment, batteries, and semiconductors--are significantly higher, up to 100%). There may also be a processing fee levied by the shipping carrier if they collect the tariffs on your behalf. As I understand it, LCSC includes a customs declaration form with the shipment, and it's your responsibility to pay any duties or tariffs as the importer.
    - alibarber 2y ago
      Yes it does seem a bit strange - I guess the goal here is to encourage them to source and sell me a quality American SMD diode at less than $(0.006 + 10%) per unit. That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax' is not. My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs don't look very different from some of them in my non-US locale, which I would have to pay anyway) Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around for other suppliers.
- XorNot 2y ago
  You don't pay for how much the item in the store costs, you pay how much it will cost to restock it (see also: petrol/gasoline prices changing throughout the week - it's because there's a fixed charge to refill the tanks, regardless of how much goes in).
- supahfly_remix 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you tell me more about your hobby that involves ship to shore cranes? Or, is this an indirect way of saying that your hobby involves transoceanic shipping? This is Hackernews, so it could plausibly be either.
  - hobs 2y ago
    A third interpretation is this is a joke and they are talking about a business they want to make work without the tariffs, but yeah might have flown over my head too.
- braiamp 2y ago
  > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if there's a competitive market.
  - whoisthemachine 2y ago
    That's the minimum they charge. The maximum they charge is how much they think customers are willing or have to pay. If the general mood is that tariffs will cause inflation, then price gouging will likely occur.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume they've declared all the goods and in that case yes. > Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers? If you re-export goods that was previously imported without using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite annoying if you import large quantities and sell small fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis. Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform the import declaration to free them for general use. This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from the bonded warehouse. The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey which sell a lot of their goods abroad. There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically smuggle goods into the country. This also affects who's performing the import declaration. Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything more fancy than letting someone else handle the import declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are companies that offer this as a service. Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has to handle this goods deeply.

34679 2y ago

I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now. Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs. I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has anyone else here had any experience with this yet?

nixgeek 2y ago
Likely yes although I’m not sure if the administration has fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from $800 USD. With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee themselves for processing something through Customs for you, paying the tariff for you so the package isn’t delayed and then enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering your goods.
- deleted 2y ago
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- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  I don’t know if UPS going into the states is the same as Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of taxes.
  - mmastrac 2y ago
    USPS and Canada Post were the most cost-effective way to deal with customs for the longest time. Unsure if that's the case anymore.
    - slavik81 2y ago
      Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300. It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by far the cheapest option. [1]: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng.html https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng....

gfkclzhzo 2y ago

I miss the 'no new taxes' generation of conservatives

Gormo 2y ago
I miss conservatives.
- selykg 2y ago
  Not a conservative but I can respect the old school conservatives to some extent. Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in my experience.
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party transformed from libertarians into a personality cult overnight because some weirdo won an election. Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone else in Washington. I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest. Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them instead?
    - boardedupshack 2y ago
      I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.
      - Gormo 2y ago
        > I think Sanders would have unified No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.

mmastrac 2y ago

I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both. When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty clear. And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get. I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other. While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate. Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.

OneDeuxTriSeiGo 2y ago
Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US infrastructure.
- mmastrac 2y ago
  I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So much procedure and process is based on reliability.
  - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 2y ago
    [dead]
  - gnuloonix 2y ago
    I mean, we're not exactly jazzed about getting measles or being homeless over here...
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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neom 2y ago

These guys have been doing something similar for just Canada <> US, was surprised to see this stuff popping up: https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-relief-navigating-us-trade-impact https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-re...

woile 2y ago

Trump is going the peronism route Argentina took. Where protectionism was implemented for the sake of... Making the people in power richer. You cannot just tariff if your industry is not there, people end up paying higher prices. Next thing you'll hear is that America is producing but actually they will be assembling (for this you'll need to get along well with China). Crazy that Milei and Trump get along well mainly because of their social policies, but economic policies are so different. The US needs only two allies, Mexico and Canada, the only countries it has borders with, and instead Trump is just creating hate there.

yalogin 2y ago

Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US. By that definition the administration has no idea what level of tariffs will make this happen. Setting up manufacturing in the US for any item is not cheap - we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. On top of that the cost of manufacturing is many fold compared to china, India, Bangladesh or Taiwan. So 25% or 10% is still not in anyway going to force manufacture to come back. Tariffs have to be at an insane level to justify bringing manufacturing back. My worry is that the administration is may be prepared to go there. That will cause a deep deep recession across the whole globe. Even then it will take a couple of decades to have meaningful manufacturing in the US

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
> we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. That, I believe, is one of the reasons why the H-series and E-series exist in the United States, along with the L visa. It gives you the opportunity to bring foreigners into the United States, either for a limited (but finitely-extendable) period of time, or permanently. You can argue that the current forms of those visas do not work, but that is not my point: My point is that the above reason is why the visas exist. To bring my point back around to tariffs: I think making the above-mentioned visas harder to get goes against the purpose of the tariffs. If you want manufacturing etc. brought back here, then make it easy (or easier) to get the knowledgeable folks who you need to train the folks who will do the manufacturing here.
- thephyber 2y ago
  Half of the administration primarily wants to onshore all the things. The other half wants to primarily kick out foreigners to reduce competition with domestic workers. They don’t have a plan, only hopes.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    They don't have hopes either, only impulses. Pure id.
- 2y ago

seltzered_ 2y ago

Related: Bunnie Huang on us tariffs impacting educators from 2018: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2018/new-us-tariffs-are-anti-maker-and-will-encourage-offshoring/ https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2018/new-us-tariffs-are-a...

rajnathani 2y ago

Given that DigiKey pretty much ships out all of its components from their US warehouses (at least when ordering from India and Canada), but that most of the components are actually made in China or elsewhere, that we could expect them to set up a warehouse outside the US for in order to avoid these tariffs affecting DigiKey customers not based in the US.

jenadine 2y ago

I am not sure I understand the implications of these tariff. Basically it means that products are becoming more expensive for people in the US. How is that a good thing for them? I understand this can help some US company to sell more products in their country, but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.

bux93 2y ago
Tariffs are just a tax. Similar to a sales tax, but it needs to be paid on import. To be clear, it's a tax on your own citizens, not foreign exports. If a product is cheaply produced in another country, and your domestic industry cannot match that price, your domestic industry might disappear. Suppose that other country is subsidizing their industry, then it's quite unfair, and it legitimizes supporting your own industry either by your own subsidies or retaliatory tariffs. As they say, to level the playing field. If the domestic industry is already dead, tariffs won't magically resurrect it. For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development. All that time, those taxes are basically just costing consumers money. They need to be kept in place up until the new factories come online AND are paid off. This can take decades. Will those tariffs still be there? Will those other countries have ALSO invested? Those uncertainties make it hard to invest in a dead/dying industry, even with tariffs in place. One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term. Tariffs can work to retaliate against, and discourage, dumping. They can play a role in protecting vital industries. But arbitrarily imposing them for political points is a dangerous gambit.
- cudgy 2y ago
  “One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.” I don’t think it’s this simple. The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits. Furthermore, it depends on how the revenue from tariffs were used. If revenue from tariffs is used to lower taxes for lower income citizens, it would be effectively a progressive tax.

127 2y ago

I wonder if this also applies to Mouser. I've been buying pretty much all of my components from there, but if it becomes much more expensive I might have to just source from China and learn to read their datasheets. Mouser has much better customer experience and Texas Instruments, Analog Devices etc. have much better chips and docs, but at some point the 10x less expensive Chinese clones (and these days even new Chinese made chips) will just become the rational choice. (With the assumption that this will be just the start of a trade war around chips)

sieabahlpark 2y ago
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pwg 2y ago
There are also tariffs being applied to goods from China, so "just source from China" may not allow you to avoid the tariffs.
hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
I think tariff targets Chinese goods in general. Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity. Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
- FreebasingLLMs 2y ago
  > Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics. That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth shut".
  - hnthrowaway0315 2y ago
    It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact, talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.