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Strange. I, as a UK citizen, don't seem to buy almost any physical USA goods at all.
by zabzonk 2y ago
Strange. I, as a UK citizen, don't seem to buy almost any physical USA goods at all.
- jxjnskkzxxhx 2y agoThere are valuable things out there other than "physical goods".
- zabzonk 2y agoWell, how are going to charge for them? For example, how to deal with Steam? most of the games I buy there (Baldurs Gate 3 for e.g.) are not made in the USA.
- orwin 2y agoAnd USA get 30% (or 20% depending on the studio) of the price you paid. Do you use Android, windows or Apple, or any licensed software?
- zabzonk 2y ago> any physical USA goods Do you see the word "physical" in my original comment? And me saying that I don't buy such things? I will admit to buying Intel CPUs, but aren't they manufactured in the Far East?
- sam_lowry_ 2y agoI am from EU and the only physical idem proudly wearing "Made in USA" label I saw over the years is the Urimat pad in public toilets. P.S. Upon inspecting my memory, I think the other one was an HP cesium clock, but that was many years ago.
- zabzonk 2y agoHP oscilloscopes were pretty good too, back when . But I haven't been there for many years, and I guess you can get good, cheap, LCD ones today for much less money. And rotating rusty hard drives, I suppose. But still all gone. And don't get me started on American urinals!
- kryptiskt 2y agoIntel have fabs in the US, Israel and Asia. So it depends.
- orwin 2y agoI responded specifically in your steam comment, not the original one, because i did not thing you original comment was wrong.
- gpderetta 2y agoAt this point, capital controls might be back on the menu?
- Etheryte 2y agoThe tariffs are only about physical goods though, so I'm not sure how this point is relevant?
- kypro 2y agoSent from iPhone
- graemep 2y agoAs an individual you would own consumer goods. A lot of international trade is other goods. Think of how much the UK has paid for things like American aircraft, ships, machinery, or materials used in manufacturing. Our armed forces use a lot of American stuff, and often even British made things have American parts (and a lot of it is covered by ITAR, to an even greater extent than the rest of Europe). People also tend to hugely underestimate the amount of British manufacturing for the same reason, and because of lot of it is Foreign branded (e.g. Nissan cars).
- wiz21c 2y agoI certainly don't need planes, war stuff nor ships and machinery. The food I eat mostly come from my country, my car is made in countries close to mine and so are the materials used to repair my house... And my gaz is Poutine's. So I fail to see why I need America at all... Ah, yeah, one big exception: my computer. Argh!
- zabzonk 2y agoUK citizen. My latest laptop is an Asus, made in Taiwan. The Intel CPU is designed in the USA I will admit, but manufactured elsewhere, I think.
- graemep 2y agoand none of the many other parts are US manufactured? You can probabl work out where the CPU was made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
- zabzonk 2y agoi think the other parts are probably Chinese
- graemep 2y ago> I certainly don't need planes, war stuff nor ships and machinery. So you would be happy for the Russians, the Chinese etc. to be able to overfly the UK and send ships into UK waters at will? You want all the factories using American made machinery, or American inputs to close?
- eyko 2y agoAs a UK non-citizen resident, my observation is that our economy is pretty much involved with USA (and the global economy more generally). I just looked up the latest trade and investments factsheet[1] and there are some interesting deets. If you're wondering about direct investment in the US as well as imports: - Total UK imports from United States amounted to £111.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 5.1% or £5.9 billion in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023). - In 2023, the outward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK in United States was £494.1 billion accounting for 26.7% of the total UK outward FDI stock. In addition to direct investment I would also count portfolio investment since we're sort of involved at an individual level through our workplace pensions (and/or personal), savings, stocks and shares ISAs, and so on. A preliminary report[2] foreign holdings of US securities as of June 2024 puts the UK as the top holder at over 3 trillion USD. 1. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67b6f8efbd116e3d7b1cf310/united-states-trade-and-investment-factsheet-2025-02-21.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67b6f8efbd116... 2. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0037 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0037
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago>Total UK imports from United States amounted to £111.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 5.1% or £5.9 billion in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023). Also "Total UK exports to United States amounted to £182.6 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 0.5% or £889 million in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023);" Which is why the current government is being particularly cautious at the moment.
- snowwrestler 2y agoAnd yet here you are on HN. Turns out there is more to an economy in 2025 than physical goods.
- zabzonk 2y agoBut as I keep on pointing out the tariff is on PHYSICAL goods. It's probably next to impossible to tax digital stuff.
- numpad0 2y agoI think that's what they're trying to fix. They want stuffs around you that says "Made in China(PRC)" to instead say "Made in USA", and everyone is saying that that is a really weird hill to die on, but they want to.
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoI was thinking about this, outside of services the only thing I do buy is Park Tool bike tools (which are excellent). I suppose I could include Apple products on the basis that the majority of the profits go to the US rather than the country of manufacture. Apple sells £1.5b of goods and services in the UK although that won't appear in the UK-US trade figures.
- thehappypm 2y agoYep, and this is the problem. The US doesn’t export nearly enough.