24 ms·

High tariffs become 'real' with our first $36K bill

483 points by ptorrone 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
hypeatei 1y ago
I truly believe Q2 numbers are going to be ugly and these temporary pumps in the market are very irrational. We're going to see the effects on earnings and employment from costs skyrocketing overnight. Many small businesses can't front the money for tariffs.
- candiddevmike 1y ago
  Market has been divorced from fundamentals since COVID IMO. Too much money with nowhere else to go and too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery. If folks start having to cash out their 401ks, we might start seeing a decline, but even then that's a tiny % ownership of the market.
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    What do market models say about what happens as more and more of the "pie" shifts toward people and entities whose only demand is investments, not (a meaningful amount, proportionately, of) consumer goods or non-financial services for ordinary human wants and needs? It's gotta be... bad, right? It seems like it'd be bad.
    - jl6 1y ago
      More investment money available => the net must be cast wider to find investment opportunities => riskier opportunities get funded. Is it a net good or bad thing to try riskier stuff? Maybe some moonshots pay off, maybe a ton of money gets wasted on stupid ideas. This is pretty much what’s been happening since 2008.
      - alabastervlog 1y ago
        This would be happening even as the proportion of the "pie" going toward actual consumer demand shrinks, though, so there are two sides to the (maybe? I dunno) problem.
        jl6 1y ago
        Investment is a form of demand though. When you invest in a startup, the money is spent on wages, rent, equipment, supplies, etc., all of which circulates into the economy. Investment is a transfer of wealth to doers, in exchange for a chance at getting a return for yourself.
        alabastervlog 1y ago
        Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Investment in real estate doesn't necessarily "transfer wealth to doers". Investment in crypto doesn't. Investment in buying existing stock doesn't (until and unless value is realized by e.g. issuing new stock—and it can be, and is, but isn't necessarily). Investment in government bonds that ultimately just pay interest on existing debt doesn't. Investment in anything that may move certain indicators a good direction (some of the money pays workers; GDP perhaps even goes up as a result of the activity) but worsens the economic position of "doers" across the overall population doesn't just fail to transfer money downward and stimulate consumer demand, but does the opposite. Investment in ways to more efficiently and effectively deny people healthcare coverage they're supposed to have, for instance. Lots of activity in weakly-competitive markets falls under this heading, and since we all but entirely stopped enforcing anti-trust in the '70s, that describes an increasingly large proportion of the economy with each passing year.
        jl6 1y ago
        Sure it does! Investment in all those things creates demand. Real estate: demand for houses means demand for house building and maintenance. Crypto: demand for chips and electricity (yes, this is super-dumb demand for dubious benefit, but demand nonetheless, just like paying people to dig holes and fill them in is also demand). Stock: I almost agree with you, but 1) stockbroking is a whole industry funded by taking a percentage on stock purchases, 2) if you buy some stock for some cash, the counterparty now has cash, which they are either going to keep, spend, or invest in something else, so the transaction is neutral-to-positive in terms of demand generation. Bonds: why do governments issue bonds? To get money to spend on stuff! Every penny of your bond purchase gets spent on government activities. Some of that is paying interest, but that interest is income for other bondholders (who then typically spend it) With taxes and transaction fees skimming a little bit off the top of everything, it’s actually almost impossible to engage in any financial transaction without that transaction stimulating all kinds of additional activity. Not all of it is valuable or even ethical activity, but the point is that the scenario posited (“everyone is just investing and there’s no real demand underpinning it”) is very unlikely to happen.
    - lastofthemojito 1y ago
      It feels like a weird backdoor to socialism. Look, we're capitalists, we trade stock on open markets ... but really most stock market gains come from a tiny fraction of companies with incredible performance, so everyone just invests in index funds to make sure they own all of the stocks, including the ones that will go up a lot ... and since we all own all of the companies, we start making sure our government works to prevent the companies we own from going out of business ...
      - Analemma_ 1y ago
        So what should be done instead? I pile everything into index funds because actively-managed funds charge higher fees for worse performance, and telling me I must invest with them instead of indexes seems much more straightforwardly socialist than whatever you're fretting about.
        lastofthemojito 1y ago
        Of course you do, that's the reasonable thing to do. It's just interesting to think about what broader shifts will accompany the transition from pension to 401(k) style retirement. My parents and grandparents owned little to no stock AFAIK. They didn't care directly how Wall Street did, they just cared about their pensions (which admittedly, I'm sure was opaquely tied to how well some companies were doing). With a sizeable 401(k) I absolutely care about how Wall Street does, and so does a much higher percentage of the population these days. You used to occasionally see bailouts of too-big-to-fail companies or industries, now the White House holds buy-a-Tesla day, presumably to boost TSLA. Just today the US Commerce Secretary announced that a UK airline would buy at least $10 billion of Boeing airplanes (Boeing stock is up ~4%). Maybe it's just me paying more attention to stock market news these days, but my impression is that politicians have recently begun to care a lot more about the overall stock market going up because a lot more voters care about the overall stock market going up.
      - yupitsme123 1y ago
        It's not really socialism because you don't own or have any say in the company you work for. And not everybody owns stocks. It's more like feudalism where those kings cut in the people below them so that they have a stake in the system and don't get any ideas about revolting.
  - duxup 1y ago
    I'd argue market patterns have been confusing since the end of the mortgage crisis.
  - justin66 1y ago
    > too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery What?
    - selectodude 1y ago
      The price of a stock like Tesla is supported due to its inclusion in the S&P 500 index funds. If you asked every person who owns SPY if they'd want to own TSLA, I imagine it would not add up to 100%. If State Street decided tomorrow that they were removing TSLA from SPY, it would crater the stock.
    - kragen 1y ago
      The Efficient Market Hypothesis is that securities prices represent the best available information in the market, because if they didn't, smart investors would take advantage of the unincorporated information to make money by buying the underpriced securities and/or selling the overpriced ones. Index fund investors do not do that; they just buy the securities that are listed in the index, which are selected typically because they have large market capitalization or are old, not because they are underpriced. So, to whatever extent the market conforms to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, it's not doing so because of the index fund investors.
      - justin66 1y ago
        > So, to whatever extent the market conforms to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, it's not doing so because of the index fund investors. I don't disagree. I also don't believe this observation in isolation supports the assertion "too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery." Remember, that statement was made in the context of today, not in a hypothetical world where only a few lone traders at home trade individual shares and high frequency traders, hedge funds, and pension plans are for some reason no longer willing to place their own bets. I'd rather not let some of the anti-index investing tropes gain traction, since they're insanely stupid and, to the extent that index investing is good for people who aren't very skilled at investing, quite damaging.
        kragen 1y ago
  - ferguess_k 1y ago
    IMO the 2008 financial crisis was the beginning. Stock market has been following the monetary pump since then. The crisis was never solved. Now we are going to suffer a much larger one.
  - 9283409232 1y ago
    Markets have been divorced from fundamentals for years before COVID. Wealth is just too concentrated in a few hands and people don't seem to understand the affect this is having on the market.
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    I hear this from MAGAs and I don't buy it. It seems to be their go to reason for the coming collapse of the economy from instead of the real reason of self induced stagflation caused by unhinged economic policy from a clown. I just don't buy it. Trump is deliberately attempting to bring on the 2nd Great Depression and he doesn't care because he has cash stored away enough to last several life times. He just likes playing God with the economy because cowardly republican congress members quiver in fear he might give them a thumb's down.
  - gopherloafers 1y ago
    Since Covid? Since the 1990s when P/E ratios in tech started to hit the high 20s and 30s. What was “crazy” back then is de rigeur now, and even paltry.
- josefritzishere 1y ago
  I can tell you our tariff markups are ugly. Q2 is going to be a bloodbath where I work.
- drstewart 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    I have some puts on the S&P 500 but largely staying away due to volatility.
    - drstewart 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - hypeatei 1y ago
        If you have a problem with my comment, then state it clearly.
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  Time and time again we see when the investors want to see a bump, they lay people off. We have execs that openly talk about maximizing head winds by running leaner than necessary so that when the next tail wind comes the gains from the shift are as big as possible... for investors. I'm not excited to see how an administration that seems to enjoy manipulating market swings pairs with investors that treat the labor force as a stock price lever.
- jbs789 1y ago
  The market should discount all future cash flows so as long as we end up in a more normal place the results of any one quarter don’t really matter. But yeah, the market is assuming this all resolves itself in relatively short order, which may not be the case. Whether or not the response is rational… depends how quickly it resolves.
- CGMthrowaway 1y ago
  Q2 GDP is estimated to come in at 2.3%, aka no recession: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow This estimate was produced today (May 8), and represents increasing GDP growth vs. the previous estimate
  - borvo 1y ago
    In January their model estimated 2.4% https://web.archive.org/web/20250107140003/https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://web.archive.org/web/20250107140003/https://www.atlan... The model is likely based on fundamental economic factors and rational decision making. The latter is why Q1 ended up with -0.3% growth. You could call this the Trump effect.
  - zhivota 1y ago
    Hilarious because 10 days ago it was -2.7%: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow/archives https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow/archives This wild of a swing makes me re-assess depending on this data for anything.
    - sandinmyjoints 1y ago
      That was for Q1, not Q2.
      - zhivota 1y ago
        Ah fair, though it seems the real number was -0.3% so still not really useful... being off by 2.4 on a number that has a historical range of [-5, 5] or so is not great.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    Phew, thank God. Crisis averted. Christmas is saved!
duxup 1y ago
One thing I wonder is: If you're a business used to selling at a certain price point, and the value proposition is established with your customers .... do you bother risking shattering that expectation if the future is unknown? Do you risk customers saying "Oh crap my hobby that I did with Adafruit is now untenable ... well I'm out." vs "Well they're low on stock, I'll check back when this is all over." I don't know if it is all or nothing but it seems like there's a lot of risk either way.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  You charge a separate tariff charge.
  - duxup 1y ago
    I think it is a good choice to be transparent. I 100% agree with that. But I don't know that it really changes the "I'm out" dynamic or risk that they won't just show up again. Also if there's a lot of "I'm out" you just bought a lot of stuff nobody wants to pay anything near the cost of.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    Yeah, I don't know why any business with the capacity wouldn't be being explicit about this. If you're going to get hate, might as well try to point the hate in the right direction. It makes absolutely no sense to fall on that particular sword.
  - grey-area 1y ago
    Something this administration considers a 'hostile and political move'? If you're small enough I guess you might get a way with it, if you're big enough you'll be threatened into compliance. Either way the US customers and the rest of the world lose, everyone is a little poorer because of these tariffs.
    - tantalor 1y ago
      I don't understand how they can say its hostile to list tariffs when plenty of merchants will advertise "made in America" as a selling point. It's the same thing!
haswell 1y ago
There are some people in my circles who have remained convinced that tariffs won’t actually amount to anything and that it’s all bluster. It seems we’re now entering the “find out” stage, and it’s incredibly frustrating. As a tinkerer who loves building things, this is heartbreaking stuff. I have projects in progress that may have to be put on hold. I tend to order things as I need them, but it’s tempting to stockpile the basics. But I don’t think it will help much in the long run if this continues, and truly hope this madness will be seen for what it is and an appropriate backlash/correction will follow.
- pclmulqdq 1y ago
  I stockpiled the basics for my projects before I learned how fast the basics can shift.
  - haswell 1y ago
    That’s a really good point that makes this so much worse. It’s not just that I may not be able to continue some projects, but that I may not be able to continue pushing the boundaries of my knowledge and experience as I learn more. Thinking about this in terms of younger aspiring builders, this will stagnate the technical growth of a generation.
  - Scoundreller 1y ago
    I've been "stockpiling" car parts for years for various maintenance I need to do... I guess I should get to doing that actual maintenance but those strut springs still scare me. When covid hit, I def sold a lot of junk that I had sitting around for years
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    This getting-ahead-of-the-tax-hikes/inflation thing was probably why the segment of households with meaningful disposable income (top quintile or so) increased spending in Q1 even as everyone else was pulling back. We did it with air conditioner upgrades, among other things. Now? Five figures of previously-probable, but optional, spending for the rest of the year is on hold indefinitely. Prices on lots of things (construction materials, holy shit) are already way up, so we'll be sitting on as much cash as we can until that eases up. We don't need that much, really....
donohoe 1y ago
[flagged]
- chgs 1y ago
  [flagged]
- flotzam 1y ago
  Adafruit's Cloudflare settings must be dialed up to an extreme level, they're blocking web.archive.org, archive.today, Tor, Startpage's Anonymous View, ... Like cmon you're running a shop and a blog, not a missile launch facility
  - darthwalsh 1y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if they have been DDOS'ed in the past, and they're probably running on a tight budget
walthamstow 1y ago
> tariff taxes are paid before we sell any of the products and are due within a week of receipt This is going to smash the cash flow of so many small businesses
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - avsteele 1y ago
    Where are you getting PCBs assembled in the USA at small volume?
    - generj 1y ago
      Adafruit does their own assembly (pick and place / reflow) but not sure what PCB providers they have. There are US based PCB fabs. Cyber City Circuits does small scale assembly in the US and seem like a cool company (ran into them from the Datasheet Digest podcast they put out). But yeah obviously they aren’t going to be able to match a $35 PCBA JLCPCB prototyping order. https://cybercitycircuits.com/ https://cybercitycircuits.com/
      - Workaccount2 1y ago
        I can tell you from first hand day job experience: Electronic manufacturing in the US definitely exists. It also is low quality and 5x to 10x the cost of China. An assembled board that costed us $825/unit in the US (and frequently had errors) costs $130/unit from China and they nailed it every time (probably because they machine QC rather than human QC). It's really not even close. Same goes for machined parts - drastically cheaper and higher quality from China.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
rrrrooofl 1y ago
[dead]
geerlingguy 1y ago
I just got an email this morning from ARACE, one of the main suppliers of Radxa boards for global shipping. I ordered their Orion O6 Mini ITX board back in December, for $430.49 total ($85 shipping). The email this morning said they had to cancel all un-shipped orders, and I could re-order and prepay the tariff through 4XL (they dropped DHL and FedEx due to tariff complications). I put the board in my cart, and now the total is $1500.90 ($1,150 in shipping). I'm happy to pay for the actual cost of shipping a single item across an entire ocean, but maybe that increase is a bit much...
- Terr_ 1y ago
  > I'm happy to pay for the actual cost of shipping a single item across an entire ocean, but maybe that increase is a bit much... The Import-ant thing (heh) is that the additional money you must pay is not going to the manufacturer or the shipper. It won't be improving working-conditions of foreign sweatshop laborers, or upgrading cargo ships to reduce pollution, etc. Instead, it's going to a US government official that basically seizes goods crossing the border who won't give them back without a payment., Worse: These higher import-taxes all US companies and consumers are being made to pay will probably go towards the benefit of... lowering what rich Americans pay on their personal income taxes.
  - collingreen 1y ago
    This made me wonder what the tariffs will do to private jets and if the 100% write off for them just includes everything or if there is more nuance there.
    - generj 1y ago
      I’ve heard private jets goers barely get bothered with customs - I’m curious how much smuggling starts happening via them.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        starts? Might I introduce you to the story of Barry Seal? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_american%2520made https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bgirard 1y ago
> products we couldn’t manufacture ourselves even if we wanted to, since the vendor has well-deserved IP protections That's something I hadn't though about in the context of tariffs with interesting implications. Does following IP rules mean that any products and technologies that wont manufacturer in the US but holds IP protections become subject to a permanent tariff? Giving countries a permanent 125% advantage over US businesses when using that IP? What's the plan here?
- tantalor 1y ago
  Given the tariff are here to stay, the only logical solution is for the US to withdraw from international IP treaties & conventions.
  - bgirard 1y ago
    I wouldn't call it logical for the US to lose all the IP protections they benefit from. But I doubt the international community would mind if suddenly American IP became free after the US withdrew itself from international trade.
  - cscurmudgeon 1y ago
    [dead]
  - FpUser 1y ago
    I guess then might try to buy the IP
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Given the tariff are here to stay Based on what? They’re going up and down every day. And the Trump administration is clearly desperate enough for a deal with China to be caught lying about engaging in talks.
    - tantalor 1y ago
      "given" as in "assuming"
reverendsteveii 1y ago
[flagged]
grey-area 1y ago
The article points out some really important downsides of tariffs for any business but particularly small businesses: Unlike sales taxes or income taxes they are paid up front, before the sale. If they don't make a sale due to tariffs they still have to pay them and end up with unprofitable inventory. Tariffs can change at any time, and order/shipping times are long, so they are very difficult to plan for. Products may have been ordered months before tariffs but end up liable.
- karpovv-boris 1y ago
  Hm. How easy to spot chatgpt. Lazy f.
  - grey-area 1y ago
    This wasn't an llm it was all me, but thanks for the insult!
    - karpovv-boris 1y ago
      sorry, my bad.
snowwrestler 1y ago
I found this interesting: > Since they are electronics products/components, there’s a chance we may be able to request reclassification on some items to avoid the 125% ‘reciprocal’ tariff, but there’s no assurance that it will succeed, and even if it does, it is many, many months until we could see a refund. I did not realize exemptions were processed as refund requests. So even if they are granted, it still kills cash flow in the meantime.
- duxup 1y ago
  The exemption process probably was never intended to be used in a dynamic / high tariff situation. And to avoid fraud you don't want to just let them off the hook for taxes up front and have them vanish...
tlogan 1y ago
> products we couldn’t manufacture ourselves even if we wanted to, since the vendor has well-deserved IP protections Tariffs are working as intended: if somebody can manufacture similar things here they will be in advantage. This isn’t an endorsement of tariffs, just an observation: their goal is to give domestic manufacturers an edge when similar goods can be made locally. In that sense, they’re functioning exactly as intended.
- Spooky23 1y ago
  It is if it’s part of a strategy. The oafish nature of this expression of one man and his whack pack of losers surrounding him is beyond that. I’m doing what most people who can are - freezing capital spend, unwinding positions and contracts that will be hit and planning for the inevitable crash in the fall. The companies that rely on advertising for revenue are going to be purging workforce — there nothing to sell. Ironically the idiots rallying for the clown will be hardest hit when the farms loans are due and the cotton and soybeans are rotting in the fields.
  - senderista 1y ago
    They will be bailed out at everyone else's expense like they were in his first term.
- jacobyoder 1y ago
  And for things that can not be manufactured or grown here... we just suck it up and pay the extra 10-20-30% anyway? If the 'intent' was to spur manufacturing, you'd enact laws with long term financial stability planned in. Few are going to commit to spending millions equipping factories when the 'tariff moat' that might make those factories sustainable will go away if Trump sees a movie in six weeks that says tariffs are bad. The 'intent' seems to be to create financial instability and chaos, to allow Trump to position himself as the financial savior, and we are concentrating huge amounts of economic power in the hands of a single person.
  - dashundchen 1y ago
avsteele 1y ago
I'm in a similar boat. Does anyone know any US PCB assemblers similar to PCBWay or JLCPCB? (e.g. small volume) I couldn't find any when i looked about a year ago
- sottol 1y ago
  I used OSH PARK ~ 10-12 years ago - it looks like they're still around and somewhat affordable, but that was just a 20 second scan of their homepage. They used to be the affordable choice back in the day. https://oshpark.com https://oshpark.com
  - the__alchemist 1y ago
    No assembly.
- shraiwi 1y ago
  OSHPark is US-based and they have excellent service.
  - generj 1y ago
    They are expensive for larger boards however. Great if you only need a few square inches.
  - rozap 1y ago
    They don't do assembly, do they?
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  They don't exist. I had hope DigiKey would be the one, but it is not. (You need vertical integration with a parts library to pull this off)
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  We work with a few, but they just do assembly, you bring the parts and PCBs. They are also insanely expensive if you are used to China prices. Boards with 10-15 components being $100+ each. Couple that with a domestic PCB manufacturing which is ~10x the cost of China, you are looking at something like an Arduino costing $250.
the__alchemist 1y ago
Has anyone tried ordering a prototype PCB lately? Holy fuck. Prototype and small-run PCBs are effectively dead if you're in the US.
- generj 1y ago
  Oshpark is still decent for small PCBs, since they are made in the US. From what I’ve seen the biggest impact is just the carriers requiring a huge fee (relative to my $40 worth of PCBs) just to deal with the tariffs at all. I almost wonder if there’s a profitable side gig for someone couriering PCBs from Canada -> US, mailing them, and then flying back. A single suitcase can carry a LOT of PCBs. Obviously declaring it all still but just structured as a single import so the fees as a percentage would go down.
  - the__alchemist 1y ago
    No assembly.
- rozap 1y ago
  Yep. They're insane. And there's no alternative locally. Biggest tax hike in my lifetime.
- polpo 1y ago
  I switched to Aisler who are in Germany. They're certainly more expensive than China but still way less than quick turn options in the US. There will still be tariffs but they won't be nearly as high. There are also smaller PCB vendors in China other than the "big two" of JLCPCB and PCBWay that are willing to be a bit more flexible and not charge the max possible duty upfront via DDP incoterms.
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  This gives me a feeling that a lot of smaller embedded players in the US are going to die...
- evan_ 1y ago
  I tried to order a few small parts off aliexpress from a seller I've used before. I knew I'd be paying a tariff but I was prepared to eat the cost. Turns out the seller just doesn't sell to the US anymore. Can't say I blame them.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
paulkrush 1y ago
If you’re curious about how the DIY open-source hardware market for Chinese-made goods is reacting to the recent 145% tariffs, check out the eBay sales data here: eBay Sold Listings:https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName=SOLD https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName... Spoiler alert: There hasn’t been any noticeable reaction yet. You might expect to see price increases or higher order volumes when searching for items like the ESP32, but that hasn’t been the case so far. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of removing the de minimis threshold on shipments. It’s hard to imagine how the postal system could efficiently handle tariffs on a dozen small $1 packages from AliExpress landing in the mailbox. I suspect we’re moving beyond that point, with private companies likely clearing these shipments in bulk before they reach USPS—if they even make it that far.
- polpo 1y ago
  As a maker of open source hardware, I and others in the US selling my projects stocked up before the de minimis threshold was eliminated on May 2. We're not increasing our prices until those stocks run out and we have to reorder - we don't want to screw the community over.
  - Suppafly 1y ago
    >We're not increasing our prices until those stocks run out and we have to reorder - we don't want to screw the community over. That's a nice thing to do, but it might be more sustainable to increase the cost some now, so that you don't have to increase it as much to cover the tariffs in the future.
  - gopherloafers 1y ago
    But once you run out, will you screw the community over or eat the costs?
    - polpo 1y ago
      That's a very uncharitable way to put things. Since my original posts it looks like things have cooled and the worst of the tariffs have been walked back, but at the sky-high tariff rates from before today, my options would have been: - Raise prices to account for tariffs. - Not raise prices, therefore not make any profit, therefore not make it worth my time, therefore not make any hardware at all. I'm not operating at big margins but I do make a profit because I want to balance supporting the community and keeping things at a sustainable level for my sanity. Those tariffs would have wiped those margins out completely.
blitzar 1y ago
[flagged]
Fokamul 1y ago
Finally americans will experience expensive electronics. I guess nobody in US realize how much more expensive is electronics for people in EU. Every electronics is more expensive by hundreds of EUR and with added bonus, the price is same for every country in EU, which in turn means when you live in EU country where median salary is 5x lower than US, you will have great time buying electronics, steam games, etc.
- RiverCrochet 1y ago
  The most expensive electronics the typical American experiences is often their phone, and I think this won't matter too much, because I believe a majority of people basically get them on an installment plan from their cellular carrier. They'll own the phone in 4 years instead of 2, but they probably would have upgraded to a new phone in 2 years and would have been paying the $200/mo. anyway. Timing is good for phone makers here honestly because phone innovation is slowing down so high prices for the same stuff can be blamed on tarriffs instead of lack of innovation. The second most expensive electronics would be game systems, and that'll be painful, but I do wonder if e.g. Nintendo would pair with cellular companies and do installment plans like phones, and/or if PS/Xbox would try to do something similar with ISPs (e.g. AT&T Gamer Deal) or rent their consoles instead of selling them. Gamer PCs are gonna take a serious hit though, and the price of individual games is certain to increase.
r0ckarong 1y ago
Winning so hard right now.
somanyphotons 1y ago
I hope they list out the tarrif costs explicitly at online checkout time
- Evidlo 1y ago
  Amazon discussed this internally apparently, and when the White House found out they called it a "hostile act"
  - ncr100 1y ago
    Oooo. Then we MUST ask for this from Amazon.
iancmceachern 1y ago
And where is this money going? Is it going to be used to directly help companies like Adafruit which are being directly harmed?
- jacobyoder 1y ago
  Going directly in to the Treasury. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-reports/dts/DailyTreasuryStatement_20250506.pdf https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report... $252 million was collected from excise tariffs on May 6. You can look at this PDF day to day. EDIT: adding on to this... most days are between $150m and $300m. There's been a few days north of $300m this calendar year. There was also one day - April 16? 17th? - with $11.5b coming in. Under 'excise taxes'. I have to assume that was something to do with early April tariff announcements? But haven't seen anything remotely similar since. So this "billions of dollars are pouring in from tariffs!" is... simply not true. There's not been a huge shift one way or the other yet. EDIT 2 - April 22 - https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-reports/dts/DailyTreasuryStatement_20250422.pdf https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report.... $11b in excise taxes deposited.
  - ncr100 1y ago
    And used to shore up the budget with the upcoming tax breaks for the wealthy...
- senderista 1y ago
  A bunch of it will go to bail out US farmers who would otherwise be wiped out.
sharpshadow 1y ago
That’s intense and probably Made in USA products when they become available will cost adjacent the same.
nrclark 1y ago
I won't defend these tariffs, or their rollout. But I will say that our dependence on Chinese manufacturing (and engineering, these days) is not good for our nation. Free trade combined with cheap labor led to a massive loss of national capability. We outsourced 75% of the supply chain for electronics, and provided decades of free training to foreign companies. Then we pulled a surprised mug when those same companies decided that they don't need us any more. As a parent of young kids, I'm also keenly aware of how much random plastic garbage we import - just to throw it away after maybe one use. Party favors are a big one. Families are drowning in low-cost, low-quality products that wind up in a landfill. Free trade created this situation, and I don't think it's good for anybody except importers and factory owners. I don't know what the solution is, and the current tariffs clearly aren't it. But free trade with China hasn't exactly been great for the US in a longterm sense, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise just because we're getting cheap consumer goods.
- lowbloodsugar 1y ago
  Sure. But this is not the way to do it. In fact if I were to think of a way to destroy the USA, this plan of Trumps would be it.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    especially with the recent military changes. everything I'm seeing just reeks of foreign operatives initiating plans that benefit the foreign government.
- PaulKeeble 1y ago
  Had tariffs been applied early when American corporations stated offshoring manufacturing to increase their profits the industry base might have been saved. But now these tariffs are just going to introduce pain to people in substantial price hikes and no company in this chaotic environment is going to put the collective trillions of dollars to building capability back in the USA. This requires a better plan.
  - hollerith 1y ago
molszanski 1y ago
This kill US based vendors and stores. Everyone will move to a JIT model. Shipping to US only after you buy a product. I expect Mexico and Canadian warehouses will have a lot of business. Stocking a warehouse in USA would be insanely risky because of this upfront cost. This will kill smaller and medium sized businesses and concentrate capital. Corporations with deep pockets must be elated. This kills their mid sized competitors.
mig39 1y ago
Social media is filled with people who are in disbelief when they get UPS or DHL invoices for tariffs. It's hard to watch people who really believed the "China will pay the tariffs" trope start to wake up to reality.
- ncr100 1y ago
  Interesting if we could equate the user pain to sending a bill to the GOP for the new taxes? That'd solve this problem. Though there is no practical logic to that, it would be a politically logical tactic.
more_corn 1y ago
We should all stop buying everything till this blows over. Even if it only caused a 20% drop in spending, a lot of powerful people would take notice. In capitalism you vote with your wallet. If we continue buying stuff like nothing has happened, whatever happened must be fine. It’s not fine and the quickest and cleanest way to say that is to simply stop. No new cars, no new appliances. No new anything. Don’t buy any foreign goods, go on a spending diet. If you absolutely must, buy used and buy local. If some policy brings the economy to a screeching halt smart money pays attention real fast.
fmsf 1y ago
I have been sharing this to try to raise awareness, the impact is going to be high! Companies are really struggling to optimise their suppliers, it is pretty hard. If they start on bill of materials they can often sort by most common parts and then it becomes a graph problem finding “cheapest” paths between often traversing four tables bom <> parts <> suppliers <> tariffs. The really hard part is mapping parts down to sku level to tariff codes. Specially at scale (think datasets with many million rows). Either way we built https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=lights https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=lights as an entry point and and have been getting more and more worried with the market as we help companies out. They are not ready for this at all and it is bitting deep. Let us know if you also need help mapping products to tariffs, we have a product for that! Alternatively we also welcome feedback!
EasyMark 1y ago
I know some desperate system design (big picture, not networking) people who are freaking out now because the parts for their designs are going to increase for some 2 fold, essentially killing their projects if something doesn't change. Years of work and coding going down the shitter because of one man's pride and a fearful do-nothing Congress that refuses to do their first and most important duty, to protect the Constitution from tyranny
ToDougie 1y ago
If (big if) income taxes are significantly reduced (eliminated for tax brackets at $200k or less, and graduated meaningfully above $200k), then the tariffs will be palatable, while giving investors and industry the time to rebuild. The rebuild will not be possible without intensive deregulation and upheaval of some entrenched regulatory institutions. It is hard to believe that any of what I have listed is possible, but in my lifetime I have seen this country do all kinds of wacky things.
- tchock23 1y ago
  Unlikely: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-tax-cuts/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-tax-cuts/
geor9e 1y ago
170% tariff? What was the extra 25% for? EDIT: Ok I found it. Section 301 tariffs from 2018 on electronics adds 25% to the 145%.
tom_m 1y ago
Uh yea they are real and will have an impact. Who didn't think that? People who banned books maybe? That's pretty wild. Appreciate articles like this though because they can maybe help someone out there. If everyone doesn't talk about it then some people will continue believing all sorts of weird stuff.
nja 1y ago
I recently got hit with $700 of tariffs on electronics, just as a consumer. It's definitely real and very annoying -- and as a consumer, visibility into it is extremely low, which makes it even worse. Long story incoming (blog post candidate? Hmm...) Pimoroni is a fantastic supplier of hobby electronics stuff -- they're like Adafruit, but in the UK. Adafruit actually sells a fair amount of their stuff, but not everything. So I occasionally order directly from them (often adding in some items that are frequently out of stock at Adafruit, such as Pi 5 chargers). I placed a big order right after the first tariffs were announced but before they went into effect. Pimoroni was having a big sale at the time, so I loaded up, thinking it'd be the last pre-tariff order I made. I elected to pay extra (not much) for UPS, since I generally trust them the most out of the shipping carriers who deliver to me (in Southern NH, right by the freight hub of MHT). After my package arrived from overseas, it was "stuck" in a warehouse in a port city for several days. The UPS website claimed "your package is being cleared, but we have all the info we need so just sit tight"... After a few days of this, I tried calling up. After fighting with the phone tree robot (one of the few for which swearing didn't seem to get me a human, strangely), the front-line support finally told me that it was actually held up in customs awaiting more information. The support rep just told me to send an invoice and hung up. That was the first strange flag -- sellers always include invoices on their packages, so why do they need me to send one? I hunted around for a more effective phone number -- a difficult task -- and eventually found the UPS small business customs office line (had to involve ChatGPT to help find the number, Google being useless now). After calling up, I was redirected a few times and finally got ahold of someone who actually was able to investigate for me. He found out that it was being held because US customs had classified some items (incorrectly) as needing additional forms (more on that below), and that I also would have to pay serious tariffs but only after the additional forms were filed. The helpful UPS guy (who, it turns out, doesn't even work in that department, but had been pulled in to help because the tariff changes were causing a lot of strife) was able to link me to a website with more information and a place to upload forms and track info. The forms needed were: a vehicle import form -- apparently the US government thinks any pump being imported must be a vehicle part, even a tiny fountain pump for plant watering -- and a pesticide import form -- apparently RGB LED matrices are considered pesticides, because they seem similar to UV lamps I guess... And there was no way to reclassify the items (not sure if that's because I'm just a lowly consumer or what). I sent this stuff over to Pimoroni, and the folks there were equally confused. But they eventually figured out how to fill out the forms and sent them back, and I uploaded them. UPS sent them along and satisfied the government, and my package was released to UPS. But by this time, the tariffs were in effect. And even though I had ordered from the UK, most of the electronics had been manufactured in China, and some contained steel made in Mexico, so the tariffs apparently applied. On top of the tariffs, UPS was going to charge me excessive warehousing fees for the package being held up! Fortunately, my helpful UPS contact was able to get approval to get those reversed, since I was never informed that the package needed more info. However, the story doesn't end here! The package was finally sent on its way and my friendly UPS driver showed up at my door with it a few days later, along with the bill. Unfortunately, it was the full bill including the warehousing fees! I had to call up a different UPS line (invoicing) and have them make sure the warehousing fees were taken off, then specifically have them call the local UPS distribution center to have them update it. This happened, and the next day the driver showed up...with the same bill. Turns out UPS systems are poorly set up. The driver called up the distribution center and verbally confirmed the updated price, but his device would NOT accept anything other than the full amount listed, with no overrides possible. We worked it out, though: I gave him a check for the correct amount, and he gave me the package but did not mark it delivered. He returned to the distribution center, and from there they must have figured out how to override it, because finally it was marked as paid and delivered and everything was solved. So I got my electronics. But the cost was $700 in tariffs due to manufacturing country (not even final manufacturing country, nor shipper country) and including vehicle and pesticide taxes for items that were not vehicles or pesticides. On a $1900 order. Plus nearly a month of time and countless hours wasted on the phone. Suffice to say the next time I went looking for a part and saw that it was shipping from outside the US, I didn't buy it. So, intended effect of the tariffs, I guess? Though I couldn't just order from the US instead, because it wasn't available, so I just didn't order anything. Hooray. It was shocking to see just how little information pretty much everyone had in this process (myself included), the complete lack of ability to correct blatant errors, and the "delay and rack up more $" strategies that seemed to be occurring. Wrt the post here: I'm sad to see Adafruit get hit by this bill, and I'm sure their prices are going to go up as a result, but I'm definitely going to continue purchasing from them, and I hope they continue to stock items from elsewhere (including Pimoroni). And I hope to one day feel comfortable ordering directly from Pimoroni again...
extraduder_ire 1y ago
As someone living in Europe, I thank my lucky stars that board designs from the likes of Adafruit/Sparkfun are almost all open source hardware. Historically, because I could throw one or two random ones into my aliexpress cart to hit a minimum order value for free shipping, but now it means I'll actually be able to get my hands on them without one or two sets of tariffs on top. If I could even get them at all otherwise.
derelicta 1y ago
[flagged]
leotravis10 1y ago
I just can't see how companies such as Adafruit and Sparkfun are going to stay in business at this point. A lot of small businesses are going to get legit killed because of this stupid and avoidable trade war. Perhaps it's by design if you read a chapter on Project 2025 on killing small businesses.
Slava_Propanei 1y ago
[dead]

483 points by ptorrone 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

I truly believe Q2 numbers are going to be ugly and these temporary pumps in the market are very irrational. We're going to see the effects on earnings and employment from costs skyrocketing overnight. Many small businesses can't front the money for tariffs.

candiddevmike 1y ago
Market has been divorced from fundamentals since COVID IMO. Too much money with nowhere else to go and too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery. If folks start having to cash out their 401ks, we might start seeing a decline, but even then that's a tiny % ownership of the market.
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  What do market models say about what happens as more and more of the "pie" shifts toward people and entities whose only demand is investments, not (a meaningful amount, proportionately, of) consumer goods or non-financial services for ordinary human wants and needs? It's gotta be... bad, right? It seems like it'd be bad.
  - jl6 1y ago
    More investment money available => the net must be cast wider to find investment opportunities => riskier opportunities get funded. Is it a net good or bad thing to try riskier stuff? Maybe some moonshots pay off, maybe a ton of money gets wasted on stupid ideas. This is pretty much what’s been happening since 2008.
    - alabastervlog 1y ago
      This would be happening even as the proportion of the "pie" going toward actual consumer demand shrinks, though, so there are two sides to the (maybe? I dunno) problem.
      - jl6 1y ago
        Investment is a form of demand though. When you invest in a startup, the money is spent on wages, rent, equipment, supplies, etc., all of which circulates into the economy. Investment is a transfer of wealth to doers, in exchange for a chance at getting a return for yourself.
        alabastervlog 1y ago
        Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Investment in real estate doesn't necessarily "transfer wealth to doers". Investment in crypto doesn't. Investment in buying existing stock doesn't (until and unless value is realized by e.g. issuing new stock—and it can be, and is, but isn't necessarily). Investment in government bonds that ultimately just pay interest on existing debt doesn't. Investment in anything that may move certain indicators a good direction (some of the money pays workers; GDP perhaps even goes up as a result of the activity) but worsens the economic position of "doers" across the overall population doesn't just fail to transfer money downward and stimulate consumer demand, but does the opposite. Investment in ways to more efficiently and effectively deny people healthcare coverage they're supposed to have, for instance. Lots of activity in weakly-competitive markets falls under this heading, and since we all but entirely stopped enforcing anti-trust in the '70s, that describes an increasingly large proportion of the economy with each passing year.
        jl6 1y ago
        Sure it does! Investment in all those things creates demand. Real estate: demand for houses means demand for house building and maintenance. Crypto: demand for chips and electricity (yes, this is super-dumb demand for dubious benefit, but demand nonetheless, just like paying people to dig holes and fill them in is also demand). Stock: I almost agree with you, but 1) stockbroking is a whole industry funded by taking a percentage on stock purchases, 2) if you buy some stock for some cash, the counterparty now has cash, which they are either going to keep, spend, or invest in something else, so the transaction is neutral-to-positive in terms of demand generation. Bonds: why do governments issue bonds? To get money to spend on stuff! Every penny of your bond purchase gets spent on government activities. Some of that is paying interest, but that interest is income for other bondholders (who then typically spend it) With taxes and transaction fees skimming a little bit off the top of everything, it’s actually almost impossible to engage in any financial transaction without that transaction stimulating all kinds of additional activity. Not all of it is valuable or even ethical activity, but the point is that the scenario posited (“everyone is just investing and there’s no real demand underpinning it”) is very unlikely to happen.
  - lastofthemojito 1y ago
    It feels like a weird backdoor to socialism. Look, we're capitalists, we trade stock on open markets ... but really most stock market gains come from a tiny fraction of companies with incredible performance, so everyone just invests in index funds to make sure they own all of the stocks, including the ones that will go up a lot ... and since we all own all of the companies, we start making sure our government works to prevent the companies we own from going out of business ...
    - Analemma_ 1y ago
      So what should be done instead? I pile everything into index funds because actively-managed funds charge higher fees for worse performance, and telling me I must invest with them instead of indexes seems much more straightforwardly socialist than whatever you're fretting about.
      - lastofthemojito 1y ago
        Of course you do, that's the reasonable thing to do. It's just interesting to think about what broader shifts will accompany the transition from pension to 401(k) style retirement. My parents and grandparents owned little to no stock AFAIK. They didn't care directly how Wall Street did, they just cared about their pensions (which admittedly, I'm sure was opaquely tied to how well some companies were doing). With a sizeable 401(k) I absolutely care about how Wall Street does, and so does a much higher percentage of the population these days. You used to occasionally see bailouts of too-big-to-fail companies or industries, now the White House holds buy-a-Tesla day, presumably to boost TSLA. Just today the US Commerce Secretary announced that a UK airline would buy at least $10 billion of Boeing airplanes (Boeing stock is up ~4%). Maybe it's just me paying more attention to stock market news these days, but my impression is that politicians have recently begun to care a lot more about the overall stock market going up because a lot more voters care about the overall stock market going up.
    - yupitsme123 1y ago
      It's not really socialism because you don't own or have any say in the company you work for. And not everybody owns stocks. It's more like feudalism where those kings cut in the people below them so that they have a stake in the system and don't get any ideas about revolting.
- duxup 1y ago
  I'd argue market patterns have been confusing since the end of the mortgage crisis.
- justin66 1y ago
  > too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery What?
  - selectodude 1y ago
    The price of a stock like Tesla is supported due to its inclusion in the S&P 500 index funds. If you asked every person who owns SPY if they'd want to own TSLA, I imagine it would not add up to 100%. If State Street decided tomorrow that they were removing TSLA from SPY, it would crater the stock.
  - kragen 1y ago
    The Efficient Market Hypothesis is that securities prices represent the best available information in the market, because if they didn't, smart investors would take advantage of the unincorporated information to make money by buying the underpriced securities and/or selling the overpriced ones. Index fund investors do not do that; they just buy the securities that are listed in the index, which are selected typically because they have large market capitalization or are old, not because they are underpriced. So, to whatever extent the market conforms to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, it's not doing so because of the index fund investors.
    - justin66 1y ago
      > So, to whatever extent the market conforms to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, it's not doing so because of the index fund investors. I don't disagree. I also don't believe this observation in isolation supports the assertion "too many index fund investors really inhibit price discovery." Remember, that statement was made in the context of today, not in a hypothetical world where only a few lone traders at home trade individual shares and high frequency traders, hedge funds, and pension plans are for some reason no longer willing to place their own bets. I'd rather not let some of the anti-index investing tropes gain traction, since they're insanely stupid and, to the extent that index investing is good for people who aren't very skilled at investing, quite damaging.
      - kragen 1y ago
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  IMO the 2008 financial crisis was the beginning. Stock market has been following the monetary pump since then. The crisis was never solved. Now we are going to suffer a much larger one.
- 9283409232 1y ago
  Markets have been divorced from fundamentals for years before COVID. Wealth is just too concentrated in a few hands and people don't seem to understand the affect this is having on the market.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  I hear this from MAGAs and I don't buy it. It seems to be their go to reason for the coming collapse of the economy from instead of the real reason of self induced stagflation caused by unhinged economic policy from a clown. I just don't buy it. Trump is deliberately attempting to bring on the 2nd Great Depression and he doesn't care because he has cash stored away enough to last several life times. He just likes playing God with the economy because cowardly republican congress members quiver in fear he might give them a thumb's down.
- gopherloafers 1y ago
  Since Covid? Since the 1990s when P/E ratios in tech started to hit the high 20s and 30s. What was “crazy” back then is de rigeur now, and even paltry.
josefritzishere 1y ago
I can tell you our tariff markups are ugly. Q2 is going to be a bloodbath where I work.
drstewart 1y ago
[flagged]
- hypeatei 1y ago
  I have some puts on the S&P 500 but largely staying away due to volatility.
  - drstewart 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - hypeatei 1y ago
      If you have a problem with my comment, then state it clearly.
libraryatnight 1y ago
Time and time again we see when the investors want to see a bump, they lay people off. We have execs that openly talk about maximizing head winds by running leaner than necessary so that when the next tail wind comes the gains from the shift are as big as possible... for investors. I'm not excited to see how an administration that seems to enjoy manipulating market swings pairs with investors that treat the labor force as a stock price lever.
jbs789 1y ago
The market should discount all future cash flows so as long as we end up in a more normal place the results of any one quarter don’t really matter. But yeah, the market is assuming this all resolves itself in relatively short order, which may not be the case. Whether or not the response is rational… depends how quickly it resolves.
CGMthrowaway 1y ago
Q2 GDP is estimated to come in at 2.3%, aka no recession: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow This estimate was produced today (May 8), and represents increasing GDP growth vs. the previous estimate
- borvo 1y ago
  In January their model estimated 2.4% https://web.archive.org/web/20250107140003/https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow https://web.archive.org/web/20250107140003/https://www.atlan... The model is likely based on fundamental economic factors and rational decision making. The latter is why Q1 ended up with -0.3% growth. You could call this the Trump effect.
- zhivota 1y ago
  Hilarious because 10 days ago it was -2.7%: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow/archives https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow/archives This wild of a swing makes me re-assess depending on this data for anything.
  - sandinmyjoints 1y ago
    That was for Q1, not Q2.
    - zhivota 1y ago
      Ah fair, though it seems the real number was -0.3% so still not really useful... being off by 2.4 on a number that has a historical range of [-5, 5] or so is not great.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  Phew, thank God. Crisis averted. Christmas is saved!

duxup 1y ago

One thing I wonder is: If you're a business used to selling at a certain price point, and the value proposition is established with your customers .... do you bother risking shattering that expectation if the future is unknown? Do you risk customers saying "Oh crap my hobby that I did with Adafruit is now untenable ... well I'm out." vs "Well they're low on stock, I'll check back when this is all over." I don't know if it is all or nothing but it seems like there's a lot of risk either way.

Workaccount2 1y ago
You charge a separate tariff charge.
- duxup 1y ago
  I think it is a good choice to be transparent. I 100% agree with that. But I don't know that it really changes the "I'm out" dynamic or risk that they won't just show up again. Also if there's a lot of "I'm out" you just bought a lot of stuff nobody wants to pay anything near the cost of.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  Yeah, I don't know why any business with the capacity wouldn't be being explicit about this. If you're going to get hate, might as well try to point the hate in the right direction. It makes absolutely no sense to fall on that particular sword.
- grey-area 1y ago
  Something this administration considers a 'hostile and political move'? If you're small enough I guess you might get a way with it, if you're big enough you'll be threatened into compliance. Either way the US customers and the rest of the world lose, everyone is a little poorer because of these tariffs.
  - tantalor 1y ago
    I don't understand how they can say its hostile to list tariffs when plenty of merchants will advertise "made in America" as a selling point. It's the same thing!

haswell 1y ago

There are some people in my circles who have remained convinced that tariffs won’t actually amount to anything and that it’s all bluster. It seems we’re now entering the “find out” stage, and it’s incredibly frustrating. As a tinkerer who loves building things, this is heartbreaking stuff. I have projects in progress that may have to be put on hold. I tend to order things as I need them, but it’s tempting to stockpile the basics. But I don’t think it will help much in the long run if this continues, and truly hope this madness will be seen for what it is and an appropriate backlash/correction will follow.

pclmulqdq 1y ago
I stockpiled the basics for my projects before I learned how fast the basics can shift.
- haswell 1y ago
  That’s a really good point that makes this so much worse. It’s not just that I may not be able to continue some projects, but that I may not be able to continue pushing the boundaries of my knowledge and experience as I learn more. Thinking about this in terms of younger aspiring builders, this will stagnate the technical growth of a generation.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  I've been "stockpiling" car parts for years for various maintenance I need to do... I guess I should get to doing that actual maintenance but those strut springs still scare me. When covid hit, I def sold a lot of junk that I had sitting around for years
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  This getting-ahead-of-the-tax-hikes/inflation thing was probably why the segment of households with meaningful disposable income (top quintile or so) increased spending in Q1 even as everyone else was pulling back. We did it with air conditioner upgrades, among other things. Now? Five figures of previously-probable, but optional, spending for the rest of the year is on hold indefinitely. Prices on lots of things (construction materials, holy shit) are already way up, so we'll be sitting on as much cash as we can until that eases up. We don't need that much, really....

donohoe 1y ago

[flagged]

chgs 1y ago
[flagged]
flotzam 1y ago
Adafruit's Cloudflare settings must be dialed up to an extreme level, they're blocking web.archive.org, archive.today, Tor, Startpage's Anonymous View, ... Like cmon you're running a shop and a blog, not a missile launch facility
- darthwalsh 1y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if they have been DDOS'ed in the past, and they're probably running on a tight budget

walthamstow 1y ago

> tariff taxes are paid before we sell any of the products and are due within a week of receipt This is going to smash the cash flow of so many small businesses

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
[flagged]
- avsteele 1y ago
  Where are you getting PCBs assembled in the USA at small volume?
  - generj 1y ago
    Adafruit does their own assembly (pick and place / reflow) but not sure what PCB providers they have. There are US based PCB fabs. Cyber City Circuits does small scale assembly in the US and seem like a cool company (ran into them from the Datasheet Digest podcast they put out). But yeah obviously they aren’t going to be able to match a $35 PCBA JLCPCB prototyping order. https://cybercitycircuits.com/ https://cybercitycircuits.com/
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      I can tell you from first hand day job experience: Electronic manufacturing in the US definitely exists. It also is low quality and 5x to 10x the cost of China. An assembled board that costed us $825/unit in the US (and frequently had errors) costs $130/unit from China and they nailed it every time (probably because they machine QC rather than human QC). It's really not even close. Same goes for machined parts - drastically cheaper and higher quality from China.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago

rrrrooofl 1y ago

[dead]

geerlingguy 1y ago

I just got an email this morning from ARACE, one of the main suppliers of Radxa boards for global shipping. I ordered their Orion O6 Mini ITX board back in December, for $430.49 total ($85 shipping). The email this morning said they had to cancel all un-shipped orders, and I could re-order and prepay the tariff through 4XL (they dropped DHL and FedEx due to tariff complications). I put the board in my cart, and now the total is $1500.90 ($1,150 in shipping). I'm happy to pay for the actual cost of shipping a single item across an entire ocean, but maybe that increase is a bit much...

Terr_ 1y ago
> I'm happy to pay for the actual cost of shipping a single item across an entire ocean, but maybe that increase is a bit much... The Import-ant thing (heh) is that the additional money you must pay is not going to the manufacturer or the shipper. It won't be improving working-conditions of foreign sweatshop laborers, or upgrading cargo ships to reduce pollution, etc. Instead, it's going to a US government official that basically seizes goods crossing the border who won't give them back without a payment., Worse: These higher import-taxes all US companies and consumers are being made to pay will probably go towards the benefit of... lowering what rich Americans pay on their personal income taxes.
- collingreen 1y ago
  This made me wonder what the tariffs will do to private jets and if the 100% write off for them just includes everything or if there is more nuance there.
  - generj 1y ago
    I’ve heard private jets goers barely get bothered with customs - I’m curious how much smuggling starts happening via them.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      starts? Might I introduce you to the story of Barry Seal? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_american%2520made https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3532216/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bgirard 1y ago

> products we couldn’t manufacture ourselves even if we wanted to, since the vendor has well-deserved IP protections That's something I hadn't though about in the context of tariffs with interesting implications. Does following IP rules mean that any products and technologies that wont manufacturer in the US but holds IP protections become subject to a permanent tariff? Giving countries a permanent 125% advantage over US businesses when using that IP? What's the plan here?

tantalor 1y ago
Given the tariff are here to stay, the only logical solution is for the US to withdraw from international IP treaties & conventions.
- bgirard 1y ago
  I wouldn't call it logical for the US to lose all the IP protections they benefit from. But I doubt the international community would mind if suddenly American IP became free after the US withdrew itself from international trade.
- cscurmudgeon 1y ago
  [dead]
- FpUser 1y ago
  I guess then might try to buy the IP
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Given the tariff are here to stay Based on what? They’re going up and down every day. And the Trump administration is clearly desperate enough for a deal with China to be caught lying about engaging in talks.
  - tantalor 1y ago
    "given" as in "assuming"

reverendsteveii 1y ago

[flagged]

grey-area 1y ago

The article points out some really important downsides of tariffs for any business but particularly small businesses: Unlike sales taxes or income taxes they are paid up front, before the sale. If they don't make a sale due to tariffs they still have to pay them and end up with unprofitable inventory. Tariffs can change at any time, and order/shipping times are long, so they are very difficult to plan for. Products may have been ordered months before tariffs but end up liable.

karpovv-boris 1y ago
Hm. How easy to spot chatgpt. Lazy f.
- grey-area 1y ago
  This wasn't an llm it was all me, but thanks for the insult!
  - karpovv-boris 1y ago
    sorry, my bad.

snowwrestler 1y ago

I found this interesting: > Since they are electronics products/components, there’s a chance we may be able to request reclassification on some items to avoid the 125% ‘reciprocal’ tariff, but there’s no assurance that it will succeed, and even if it does, it is many, many months until we could see a refund. I did not realize exemptions were processed as refund requests. So even if they are granted, it still kills cash flow in the meantime.

duxup 1y ago
The exemption process probably was never intended to be used in a dynamic / high tariff situation. And to avoid fraud you don't want to just let them off the hook for taxes up front and have them vanish...

tlogan 1y ago

> products we couldn’t manufacture ourselves even if we wanted to, since the vendor has well-deserved IP protections Tariffs are working as intended: if somebody can manufacture similar things here they will be in advantage. This isn’t an endorsement of tariffs, just an observation: their goal is to give domestic manufacturers an edge when similar goods can be made locally. In that sense, they’re functioning exactly as intended.

Spooky23 1y ago
It is if it’s part of a strategy. The oafish nature of this expression of one man and his whack pack of losers surrounding him is beyond that. I’m doing what most people who can are - freezing capital spend, unwinding positions and contracts that will be hit and planning for the inevitable crash in the fall. The companies that rely on advertising for revenue are going to be purging workforce — there nothing to sell. Ironically the idiots rallying for the clown will be hardest hit when the farms loans are due and the cotton and soybeans are rotting in the fields.
- senderista 1y ago
  They will be bailed out at everyone else's expense like they were in his first term.
jacobyoder 1y ago
And for things that can not be manufactured or grown here... we just suck it up and pay the extra 10-20-30% anyway? If the 'intent' was to spur manufacturing, you'd enact laws with long term financial stability planned in. Few are going to commit to spending millions equipping factories when the 'tariff moat' that might make those factories sustainable will go away if Trump sees a movie in six weeks that says tariffs are bad. The 'intent' seems to be to create financial instability and chaos, to allow Trump to position himself as the financial savior, and we are concentrating huge amounts of economic power in the hands of a single person.
- dashundchen 1y ago

avsteele 1y ago

I'm in a similar boat. Does anyone know any US PCB assemblers similar to PCBWay or JLCPCB? (e.g. small volume) I couldn't find any when i looked about a year ago

sottol 1y ago
I used OSH PARK ~ 10-12 years ago - it looks like they're still around and somewhat affordable, but that was just a 20 second scan of their homepage. They used to be the affordable choice back in the day. https://oshpark.com https://oshpark.com
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  No assembly.
shraiwi 1y ago
OSHPark is US-based and they have excellent service.
- generj 1y ago
  They are expensive for larger boards however. Great if you only need a few square inches.
- rozap 1y ago
  They don't do assembly, do they?
the__alchemist 1y ago
They don't exist. I had hope DigiKey would be the one, but it is not. (You need vertical integration with a parts library to pull this off)
Workaccount2 1y ago
We work with a few, but they just do assembly, you bring the parts and PCBs. They are also insanely expensive if you are used to China prices. Boards with 10-15 components being $100+ each. Couple that with a domestic PCB manufacturing which is ~10x the cost of China, you are looking at something like an Arduino costing $250.

the__alchemist 1y ago

Has anyone tried ordering a prototype PCB lately? Holy fuck. Prototype and small-run PCBs are effectively dead if you're in the US.

generj 1y ago
Oshpark is still decent for small PCBs, since they are made in the US. From what I’ve seen the biggest impact is just the carriers requiring a huge fee (relative to my $40 worth of PCBs) just to deal with the tariffs at all. I almost wonder if there’s a profitable side gig for someone couriering PCBs from Canada -> US, mailing them, and then flying back. A single suitcase can carry a LOT of PCBs. Obviously declaring it all still but just structured as a single import so the fees as a percentage would go down.
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  No assembly.
rozap 1y ago
Yep. They're insane. And there's no alternative locally. Biggest tax hike in my lifetime.
polpo 1y ago
I switched to Aisler who are in Germany. They're certainly more expensive than China but still way less than quick turn options in the US. There will still be tariffs but they won't be nearly as high. There are also smaller PCB vendors in China other than the "big two" of JLCPCB and PCBWay that are willing to be a bit more flexible and not charge the max possible duty upfront via DDP incoterms.
ferguess_k 1y ago
This gives me a feeling that a lot of smaller embedded players in the US are going to die...
evan_ 1y ago
I tried to order a few small parts off aliexpress from a seller I've used before. I knew I'd be paying a tariff but I was prepared to eat the cost. Turns out the seller just doesn't sell to the US anymore. Can't say I blame them.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

paulkrush 1y ago

If you’re curious about how the DIY open-source hardware market for Chinese-made goods is reacting to the recent 145% tariffs, check out the eBay sales data here: eBay Sold Listings:https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName=SOLD https://www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&tabName... Spoiler alert: There hasn’t been any noticeable reaction yet. You might expect to see price increases or higher order volumes when searching for items like the ESP32, but that hasn’t been the case so far. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of removing the de minimis threshold on shipments. It’s hard to imagine how the postal system could efficiently handle tariffs on a dozen small $1 packages from AliExpress landing in the mailbox. I suspect we’re moving beyond that point, with private companies likely clearing these shipments in bulk before they reach USPS—if they even make it that far.

polpo 1y ago
As a maker of open source hardware, I and others in the US selling my projects stocked up before the de minimis threshold was eliminated on May 2. We're not increasing our prices until those stocks run out and we have to reorder - we don't want to screw the community over.
- Suppafly 1y ago
  >We're not increasing our prices until those stocks run out and we have to reorder - we don't want to screw the community over. That's a nice thing to do, but it might be more sustainable to increase the cost some now, so that you don't have to increase it as much to cover the tariffs in the future.
- gopherloafers 1y ago
  But once you run out, will you screw the community over or eat the costs?
  - polpo 1y ago
    That's a very uncharitable way to put things. Since my original posts it looks like things have cooled and the worst of the tariffs have been walked back, but at the sky-high tariff rates from before today, my options would have been: - Raise prices to account for tariffs. - Not raise prices, therefore not make any profit, therefore not make it worth my time, therefore not make any hardware at all. I'm not operating at big margins but I do make a profit because I want to balance supporting the community and keeping things at a sustainable level for my sanity. Those tariffs would have wiped those margins out completely.

blitzar 1y ago

[flagged]

Fokamul 1y ago

Finally americans will experience expensive electronics. I guess nobody in US realize how much more expensive is electronics for people in EU. Every electronics is more expensive by hundreds of EUR and with added bonus, the price is same for every country in EU, which in turn means when you live in EU country where median salary is 5x lower than US, you will have great time buying electronics, steam games, etc.

RiverCrochet 1y ago
The most expensive electronics the typical American experiences is often their phone, and I think this won't matter too much, because I believe a majority of people basically get them on an installment plan from their cellular carrier. They'll own the phone in 4 years instead of 2, but they probably would have upgraded to a new phone in 2 years and would have been paying the $200/mo. anyway. Timing is good for phone makers here honestly because phone innovation is slowing down so high prices for the same stuff can be blamed on tarriffs instead of lack of innovation. The second most expensive electronics would be game systems, and that'll be painful, but I do wonder if e.g. Nintendo would pair with cellular companies and do installment plans like phones, and/or if PS/Xbox would try to do something similar with ISPs (e.g. AT&T Gamer Deal) or rent their consoles instead of selling them. Gamer PCs are gonna take a serious hit though, and the price of individual games is certain to increase.

r0ckarong 1y ago

Winning so hard right now.

somanyphotons 1y ago

I hope they list out the tarrif costs explicitly at online checkout time

Evidlo 1y ago
Amazon discussed this internally apparently, and when the White House found out they called it a "hostile act"
- ncr100 1y ago
  Oooo. Then we MUST ask for this from Amazon.

iancmceachern 1y ago

And where is this money going? Is it going to be used to directly help companies like Adafruit which are being directly harmed?

jacobyoder 1y ago
Going directly in to the Treasury. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-reports/dts/DailyTreasuryStatement_20250506.pdf https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report... $252 million was collected from excise tariffs on May 6. You can look at this PDF day to day. EDIT: adding on to this... most days are between $150m and $300m. There's been a few days north of $300m this calendar year. There was also one day - April 16? 17th? - with $11.5b coming in. Under 'excise taxes'. I have to assume that was something to do with early April tariff announcements? But haven't seen anything remotely similar since. So this "billions of dollars are pouring in from tariffs!" is... simply not true. There's not been a huge shift one way or the other yet. EDIT 2 - April 22 - https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-reports/dts/DailyTreasuryStatement_20250422.pdf https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/static-data/published-report.... $11b in excise taxes deposited.
- ncr100 1y ago
  And used to shore up the budget with the upcoming tax breaks for the wealthy...
senderista 1y ago
A bunch of it will go to bail out US farmers who would otherwise be wiped out.

sharpshadow 1y ago

That’s intense and probably Made in USA products when they become available will cost adjacent the same.

nrclark 1y ago

I won't defend these tariffs, or their rollout. But I will say that our dependence on Chinese manufacturing (and engineering, these days) is not good for our nation. Free trade combined with cheap labor led to a massive loss of national capability. We outsourced 75% of the supply chain for electronics, and provided decades of free training to foreign companies. Then we pulled a surprised mug when those same companies decided that they don't need us any more. As a parent of young kids, I'm also keenly aware of how much random plastic garbage we import - just to throw it away after maybe one use. Party favors are a big one. Families are drowning in low-cost, low-quality products that wind up in a landfill. Free trade created this situation, and I don't think it's good for anybody except importers and factory owners. I don't know what the solution is, and the current tariffs clearly aren't it. But free trade with China hasn't exactly been great for the US in a longterm sense, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise just because we're getting cheap consumer goods.

lowbloodsugar 1y ago
Sure. But this is not the way to do it. In fact if I were to think of a way to destroy the USA, this plan of Trumps would be it.
- dylan604 1y ago
  especially with the recent military changes. everything I'm seeing just reeks of foreign operatives initiating plans that benefit the foreign government.
PaulKeeble 1y ago
Had tariffs been applied early when American corporations stated offshoring manufacturing to increase their profits the industry base might have been saved. But now these tariffs are just going to introduce pain to people in substantial price hikes and no company in this chaotic environment is going to put the collective trillions of dollars to building capability back in the USA. This requires a better plan.
- hollerith 1y ago

molszanski 1y ago

This kill US based vendors and stores. Everyone will move to a JIT model. Shipping to US only after you buy a product. I expect Mexico and Canadian warehouses will have a lot of business. Stocking a warehouse in USA would be insanely risky because of this upfront cost. This will kill smaller and medium sized businesses and concentrate capital. Corporations with deep pockets must be elated. This kills their mid sized competitors.

mig39 1y ago

Social media is filled with people who are in disbelief when they get UPS or DHL invoices for tariffs. It's hard to watch people who really believed the "China will pay the tariffs" trope start to wake up to reality.

ncr100 1y ago
Interesting if we could equate the user pain to sending a bill to the GOP for the new taxes? That'd solve this problem. Though there is no practical logic to that, it would be a politically logical tactic.

more_corn 1y ago

We should all stop buying everything till this blows over. Even if it only caused a 20% drop in spending, a lot of powerful people would take notice. In capitalism you vote with your wallet. If we continue buying stuff like nothing has happened, whatever happened must be fine. It’s not fine and the quickest and cleanest way to say that is to simply stop. No new cars, no new appliances. No new anything. Don’t buy any foreign goods, go on a spending diet. If you absolutely must, buy used and buy local. If some policy brings the economy to a screeching halt smart money pays attention real fast.

fmsf 1y ago

I have been sharing this to try to raise awareness, the impact is going to be high! Companies are really struggling to optimise their suppliers, it is pretty hard. If they start on bill of materials they can often sort by most common parts and then it becomes a graph problem finding “cheapest” paths between often traversing four tables bom <> parts <> suppliers <> tariffs. The really hard part is mapping parts down to sku level to tariff codes. Specially at scale (think datasets with many million rows). Either way we built https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=lights https://www.searchtariff.com/?q=lights as an entry point and and have been getting more and more worried with the market as we help companies out. They are not ready for this at all and it is bitting deep. Let us know if you also need help mapping products to tariffs, we have a product for that! Alternatively we also welcome feedback!

EasyMark 1y ago

I know some desperate system design (big picture, not networking) people who are freaking out now because the parts for their designs are going to increase for some 2 fold, essentially killing their projects if something doesn't change. Years of work and coding going down the shitter because of one man's pride and a fearful do-nothing Congress that refuses to do their first and most important duty, to protect the Constitution from tyranny

ToDougie 1y ago

If (big if) income taxes are significantly reduced (eliminated for tax brackets at $200k or less, and graduated meaningfully above $200k), then the tariffs will be palatable, while giving investors and industry the time to rebuild. The rebuild will not be possible without intensive deregulation and upheaval of some entrenched regulatory institutions. It is hard to believe that any of what I have listed is possible, but in my lifetime I have seen this country do all kinds of wacky things.

tchock23 1y ago
Unlikely: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-tax-cuts/ https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-tax-cuts/

geor9e 1y ago

170% tariff? What was the extra 25% for? EDIT: Ok I found it. Section 301 tariffs from 2018 on electronics adds 25% to the 145%.

tom_m 1y ago

Uh yea they are real and will have an impact. Who didn't think that? People who banned books maybe? That's pretty wild. Appreciate articles like this though because they can maybe help someone out there. If everyone doesn't talk about it then some people will continue believing all sorts of weird stuff.

nja 1y ago

I recently got hit with $700 of tariffs on electronics, just as a consumer. It's definitely real and very annoying -- and as a consumer, visibility into it is extremely low, which makes it even worse. Long story incoming (blog post candidate? Hmm...) Pimoroni is a fantastic supplier of hobby electronics stuff -- they're like Adafruit, but in the UK. Adafruit actually sells a fair amount of their stuff, but not everything. So I occasionally order directly from them (often adding in some items that are frequently out of stock at Adafruit, such as Pi 5 chargers). I placed a big order right after the first tariffs were announced but before they went into effect. Pimoroni was having a big sale at the time, so I loaded up, thinking it'd be the last pre-tariff order I made. I elected to pay extra (not much) for UPS, since I generally trust them the most out of the shipping carriers who deliver to me (in Southern NH, right by the freight hub of MHT). After my package arrived from overseas, it was "stuck" in a warehouse in a port city for several days. The UPS website claimed "your package is being cleared, but we have all the info we need so just sit tight"... After a few days of this, I tried calling up. After fighting with the phone tree robot (one of the few for which swearing didn't seem to get me a human, strangely), the front-line support finally told me that it was actually held up in customs awaiting more information. The support rep just told me to send an invoice and hung up. That was the first strange flag -- sellers always include invoices on their packages, so why do they need me to send one? I hunted around for a more effective phone number -- a difficult task -- and eventually found the UPS small business customs office line (had to involve ChatGPT to help find the number, Google being useless now). After calling up, I was redirected a few times and finally got ahold of someone who actually was able to investigate for me. He found out that it was being held because US customs had classified some items (incorrectly) as needing additional forms (more on that below), and that I also would have to pay serious tariffs but only after the additional forms were filed. The helpful UPS guy (who, it turns out, doesn't even work in that department, but had been pulled in to help because the tariff changes were causing a lot of strife) was able to link me to a website with more information and a place to upload forms and track info. The forms needed were: a vehicle import form -- apparently the US government thinks any pump being imported must be a vehicle part, even a tiny fountain pump for plant watering -- and a pesticide import form -- apparently RGB LED matrices are considered pesticides, because they seem similar to UV lamps I guess... And there was no way to reclassify the items (not sure if that's because I'm just a lowly consumer or what). I sent this stuff over to Pimoroni, and the folks there were equally confused. But they eventually figured out how to fill out the forms and sent them back, and I uploaded them. UPS sent them along and satisfied the government, and my package was released to UPS. But by this time, the tariffs were in effect. And even though I had ordered from the UK, most of the electronics had been manufactured in China, and some contained steel made in Mexico, so the tariffs apparently applied. On top of the tariffs, UPS was going to charge me excessive warehousing fees for the package being held up! Fortunately, my helpful UPS contact was able to get approval to get those reversed, since I was never informed that the package needed more info. However, the story doesn't end here! The package was finally sent on its way and my friendly UPS driver showed up at my door with it a few days later, along with the bill. Unfortunately, it was the full bill including the warehousing fees! I had to call up a different UPS line (invoicing) and have them make sure the warehousing fees were taken off, then specifically have them call the local UPS distribution center to have them update it. This happened, and the next day the driver showed up...with the same bill. Turns out UPS systems are poorly set up. The driver called up the distribution center and verbally confirmed the updated price, but his device would NOT accept anything other than the full amount listed, with no overrides possible. We worked it out, though: I gave him a check for the correct amount, and he gave me the package but did not mark it delivered. He returned to the distribution center, and from there they must have figured out how to override it, because finally it was marked as paid and delivered and everything was solved. So I got my electronics. But the cost was $700 in tariffs due to manufacturing country (not even final manufacturing country, nor shipper country) and including vehicle and pesticide taxes for items that were not vehicles or pesticides. On a $1900 order. Plus nearly a month of time and countless hours wasted on the phone. Suffice to say the next time I went looking for a part and saw that it was shipping from outside the US, I didn't buy it. So, intended effect of the tariffs, I guess? Though I couldn't just order from the US instead, because it wasn't available, so I just didn't order anything. Hooray. It was shocking to see just how little information pretty much everyone had in this process (myself included), the complete lack of ability to correct blatant errors, and the "delay and rack up more $" strategies that seemed to be occurring. Wrt the post here: I'm sad to see Adafruit get hit by this bill, and I'm sure their prices are going to go up as a result, but I'm definitely going to continue purchasing from them, and I hope they continue to stock items from elsewhere (including Pimoroni). And I hope to one day feel comfortable ordering directly from Pimoroni again...

extraduder_ire 1y ago

As someone living in Europe, I thank my lucky stars that board designs from the likes of Adafruit/Sparkfun are almost all open source hardware. Historically, because I could throw one or two random ones into my aliexpress cart to hit a minimum order value for free shipping, but now it means I'll actually be able to get my hands on them without one or two sets of tariffs on top. If I could even get them at all otherwise.

derelicta 1y ago

[flagged]

leotravis10 1y ago

I just can't see how companies such as Adafruit and Sparkfun are going to stay in business at this point. A lot of small businesses are going to get legit killed because of this stupid and avoidable trade war. Perhaps it's by design if you read a chapter on Project 2025 on killing small businesses.

Slava_Propanei 1y ago

[dead]