4 ms·

If the origins are so fuzzy, I guess other manufacturers would very soon adjust their part lists/part origins to avoid the tariff?

alephnerd 1y ago
Even in normal times regulators don't take kindly to origination fraud even, so it's highly unlikely anyone will risk it with an admin like the current one. Look at what happened to Amazon earlier today and SentinelOne last week. Most manufacturers will eat the cost and raise prices to a certain extent. Base models of any product tend to be manufactured in such as way that they have much looser margins.
- endianswap 1y ago
  What regulators lol
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    Most recently, Ford for violating the "Chicken Tax" - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-pay-365-million-us-import-tariff-evasion-case-2024-03-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-p... And that was under the Biden admin, which was much less pushy. The Trump admin is much more vindictive, especially with a policy that appears to be backed personally by DJT. Here are some interesting legal articles discussing this very thing in the Trump admin https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/02/us-administration-tariff-expansion-potential-false-claims-act-actions-and-other-enforcement-implications https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/02/us-administration-t... https://natlawreview.com/article/what-every-multinational-company-needs-know-about-criminal-enforcement-trade-import https://natlawreview.com/article/what-every-multinational-co...
    - mindslight 1y ago
      [flagged]
- pas 1y ago
  what happened to SentinelOne last week? :o
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    I meant 2 weeks ago - Chris Krebs "resigned" and S1 had to do a lot of damage control around their Fed business (which is significant as a cybersecurity vendor). Won't be surprised if Stamos quietly "resigns" in a couple months as well.
AlotOfReading 1y ago
Fuzzy in the sense of "you need a bunch of experts and lawyers to sit down to determine what the correct answer for the government is in any specific situation". The work is exceedingly tedious and expensive. I was involved in similar efforts to remove Chinese parts from the supply chain during the previous Trump administration. It was a nightmare that involved dozens of people reviewing tens of thousands of parts across hundreds of components with multiple revisions. I was involved for two years and that wasn't even the entire thing. Most changes required multiple layers of analysis/engineering review, change proposals (which often had to pass change review boards), vendor negotiations, manufacturer negotiations, reams of documentation about changes to refit procedures for previously produced HW, testing, validation, etc. Removing Mexico and Canada from supply chains would be even worse. Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs.
- leereeves 1y ago
  > Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs. Impossible meaning the parts aren't yet manufactured in the US, or that they can't be for some reason?
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    There's no doubt that they could be. Just not as cheaply.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      Access to raw materials may be a fundamental blocker there. I had seen stats putting China's control of certain rare earth minerals as high as 80% and products like lithium batteries as high as 97%. I don't know the industry well enough to validate that, but I couldn't find anything refuting or disproving those numbers either. If true, we very well may not be able to make them here if China were to cut off those resources long term.
      - lazide 1y ago
        These all have potential mines in the US. They’re currently shuttered however, because of cost, because China is cheaper and has been for a long time.
tw04 1y ago
Fuzzy is a feature, not a flaw. It allows the president to unilaterally pick winner and losers. Other manufacturers can do all sorts of things to try to be compliant, but ultimately the only way to be in compliance is to bend the knee. They’re welcome to sue, but that could take years and millions to figure out.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Based on the previous comment, it sounds like the fuzziness well predates Trump. Are you arguing that the fuzziness was built into the system previously to allow presidents to pick winners and losers in the auto industry? Do you know if there are clear examples of past presidents actually using that power?
  - bronson 1y ago
    Sure, it's an inherently fuzzy concept, but that hasn't mattered much until now.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      I actually see this as an example of why the fuzziness should always matter. We may occasionally find good reason to take the risk, but we have a ton of this kind of fuzziness written into our countless laws and we have no real way to stop those in charge from deciding to misuse it.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        The mechanism to stop it is to lean on the chickenshit Republican congress critters to impeach and convict the president who is using his discretionary powers to overtly loot for personal gain, attack our country (/me waves at the import blockade), and is already ignoring the check of the judiciary. It would be great if there were other methods of accountability, yes. But it's impossible to codify legal rules into perfect mechanically-executable formalities, and it's impossible to avoid the principle agent problem. Since you seem to be concerned about this problem, surely you are contacting your congressional representative and senators to express support for impeachment, right?
tritipsocial 1y ago
It’s not actually a fuzzy concept. CBP determines it at the port of entry and they basically have this huge list of every type of product. Fraud is taken extremely seriously so its not something companies mess around with. The fuziness mentioned comes from when outside firms try and estimate the % domestic content. Unlike CBP they’re largely making estimated guesses, but luckily that’s not how the tariffs are calculated.

alephnerd 1y ago

Even in normal times regulators don't take kindly to origination fraud even, so it's highly unlikely anyone will risk it with an admin like the current one. Look at what happened to Amazon earlier today and SentinelOne last week. Most manufacturers will eat the cost and raise prices to a certain extent. Base models of any product tend to be manufactured in such as way that they have much looser margins.

endianswap 1y ago
What regulators lol
- alephnerd 1y ago
  Most recently, Ford for violating the "Chicken Tax" - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-pay-365-million-us-import-tariff-evasion-case-2024-03-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-p... And that was under the Biden admin, which was much less pushy. The Trump admin is much more vindictive, especially with a policy that appears to be backed personally by DJT. Here are some interesting legal articles discussing this very thing in the Trump admin https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/02/us-administration-tariff-expansion-potential-false-claims-act-actions-and-other-enforcement-implications https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/02/us-administration-t... https://natlawreview.com/article/what-every-multinational-company-needs-know-about-criminal-enforcement-trade-import https://natlawreview.com/article/what-every-multinational-co...
  - mindslight 1y ago
    [flagged]
pas 1y ago
what happened to SentinelOne last week? :o
- alephnerd 1y ago
  I meant 2 weeks ago - Chris Krebs "resigned" and S1 had to do a lot of damage control around their Fed business (which is significant as a cybersecurity vendor). Won't be surprised if Stamos quietly "resigns" in a couple months as well.

AlotOfReading 1y ago

Fuzzy in the sense of "you need a bunch of experts and lawyers to sit down to determine what the correct answer for the government is in any specific situation". The work is exceedingly tedious and expensive. I was involved in similar efforts to remove Chinese parts from the supply chain during the previous Trump administration. It was a nightmare that involved dozens of people reviewing tens of thousands of parts across hundreds of components with multiple revisions. I was involved for two years and that wasn't even the entire thing. Most changes required multiple layers of analysis/engineering review, change proposals (which often had to pass change review boards), vendor negotiations, manufacturer negotiations, reams of documentation about changes to refit procedures for previously produced HW, testing, validation, etc. Removing Mexico and Canada from supply chains would be even worse. Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs.

leereeves 1y ago
> Probably nigh-impossible for some OEMs. Impossible meaning the parts aren't yet manufactured in the US, or that they can't be for some reason?
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  There's no doubt that they could be. Just not as cheaply.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Access to raw materials may be a fundamental blocker there. I had seen stats putting China's control of certain rare earth minerals as high as 80% and products like lithium batteries as high as 97%. I don't know the industry well enough to validate that, but I couldn't find anything refuting or disproving those numbers either. If true, we very well may not be able to make them here if China were to cut off those resources long term.
    - lazide 1y ago
      These all have potential mines in the US. They’re currently shuttered however, because of cost, because China is cheaper and has been for a long time.

tw04 1y ago

Fuzzy is a feature, not a flaw. It allows the president to unilaterally pick winner and losers. Other manufacturers can do all sorts of things to try to be compliant, but ultimately the only way to be in compliance is to bend the knee. They’re welcome to sue, but that could take years and millions to figure out.

_heimdall 1y ago
Based on the previous comment, it sounds like the fuzziness well predates Trump. Are you arguing that the fuzziness was built into the system previously to allow presidents to pick winners and losers in the auto industry? Do you know if there are clear examples of past presidents actually using that power?
- bronson 1y ago
  Sure, it's an inherently fuzzy concept, but that hasn't mattered much until now.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    I actually see this as an example of why the fuzziness should always matter. We may occasionally find good reason to take the risk, but we have a ton of this kind of fuzziness written into our countless laws and we have no real way to stop those in charge from deciding to misuse it.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      The mechanism to stop it is to lean on the chickenshit Republican congress critters to impeach and convict the president who is using his discretionary powers to overtly loot for personal gain, attack our country (/me waves at the import blockade), and is already ignoring the check of the judiciary. It would be great if there were other methods of accountability, yes. But it's impossible to codify legal rules into perfect mechanically-executable formalities, and it's impossible to avoid the principle agent problem. Since you seem to be concerned about this problem, surely you are contacting your congressional representative and senators to express support for impeachment, right?

tritipsocial 1y ago

It’s not actually a fuzzy concept. CBP determines it at the port of entry and they basically have this huge list of every type of product. Fraud is taken extremely seriously so its not something companies mess around with. The fuziness mentioned comes from when outside firms try and estimate the % domestic content. Unlike CBP they’re largely making estimated guesses, but luckily that’s not how the tariffs are calculated.