4 ms·

I don't agree with >99% of what Trump does, but closing this loophole that allowed Chinese companies to flood Western markets with cheap (and partly dangerous)

• dsign 1y ago
  There is Chinese junk, German junk, and American junk. But not all of those countries are into junk production exclusively. I've received goods from a China startup with are much higher quality than goods from a Germany company which is over one hundred years old. The question is what's the West doing to uppe their game, and right now it seems that our side is fundamentally incompatible with the sort of things China is doing, and then we resort to blaming them for whatever we can.
  • ieeamo 1y ago
    There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.
  • rvnx 1y ago
    The real question is why people buy such products, and the answer is because the quality for that specific price point is decent. When you buy Anker for example, you are buying, pure China products, but still a very good choice. Many US companies choose to manufacture in China because the tooling is more advanced than in other countries + scalability is high. If you buy a 2 USD dress don’t expect it to be super high-quality but at the same time the price is reasonable for that.
    • Ekaros 1y ago
      And often when I am charged 5x or 10x for something here I have no idea if the manufacturing price was 2x or 3x and thus higher quality with better QC and so on. Or does that money just go to bunch of middle-men and to bottom line of the local seller.
    • fakedang 1y ago
      Also the factory that produces the $2000 luxury dress is often the same one producing the $2 Temu version. The former has a specific yarn, strict QC, lifecycle audits, the works. The latter uses the cheapest available yarn, no QC and crappy packaging.
    • blub 1y ago
      Pure China products with Western QC on top and somebody to sue when things go wrong. Turns out this matters. But it’s still better to buy made in EU/USA.
    • RealStickman_ 1y ago
      My favourite example is cables. I can either buy a Chinese-made product locally, or get a similar quality for a tenth the price on Aliexpress.
  • blub 1y ago
    China has very many start-ups and one man shows shipping utter junk. Germany and the US are not even in the same league. The companies in those countries tend to follow the local laws because they know there are consequences. Good luck getting compensation when that product from AJDHJk sets your house on fire or makes you sick. In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level. You can see how this goes wrong with Anker’s recent recall, where they got blindsided by their supplier and now have to do a recall because their portable batteries can cause fires.
    • dsign 1y ago
      I won't deny your point, but I think we are missing something. China's economy has more cutthroat competition than at least where I live. As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. And those brands still manage to beat domestic ones in price, often with higher quality. My point being, QC and legislation alone can account for the price difference; there has to be other economic factors at play. Also, I recently watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 , which may be smoke and mirrors and have me slightly biased. Also, my iphone is made in China.
      • mschuster91 1y ago
        > As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. The thing is, there are three ways to survive as a company. The one way is establishing a brand like Ecoflow, DJI, Anker, and do what you suggest. The second one is to produce directly for some large Western brand (either as contract manufacturer or ODM). The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume. There can't be that many companies making and selling PL259 adapters as there are "brands" on Amazon selling them, after all.
        • rob74 1y ago
  • potato3732842 1y ago
    It's not that China is into junk production exclusively as your dishonest straw man claims. It's that china can make an overwhelming amount of it. The weird shipping situation subsidized the flow of junk from China to the US. It subsided everything else too but everything else didn't necessarily benefit as much from the subsidy so the junk is what really changes in volume based on the nickels and dimes of it.
    • dsign 1y ago
      Dishonest strawman? I sincerely understood the post implied China produces only junk, which I thought was an unfair statement. My apologies. In a second read, now I understand that the post implies that China produces lots of junk that then they magically teleport to the doorstep of unwilling Americans, who then snare on the junk and fall when they are trying to leave their houses to buy American-made high quality goods, thus thwarting the good business and good intentions of that economy /s. Look, I'm okay if people want to have their government impose on them what they should buy and they should not, on the principle that national capital should get a bigger slice of the pie. But if you are going to allow the government to decide that for everybody, you may as well not stop there and let the government decide on other matters, like healthcare, education, and economic incentives for society.
• sschueller 1y ago
  Did you know Switzerland has a free trade agreement with China? We have the same strict/very similar strict rules as the EU does. In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable. Of course the end consumer can also directly purchase from China as well but then it is their responsibility (Eigenverantwortung). Customs will also confiscate fake brands and for example radios that violate frequencies rules (unless you can provide documents that you are allowed to operate such a device, ham radio license etc.)
  • comrade1234 1y ago
    The article is mostly about duties. If you buy from someone outside of Switzerland that doesn't take care of the customs fees it's a pain for you. I once bought something that was only around 40chf from someone in the eu but then had to pay an extra ~40chf to Swiss customs for tax + plus handling fees (they had to open the box, inspect it, repackage it and send it to me).
  • MandieD 1y ago
    In Switzerland if you import dangerous junk and sell it in your store, you are liable. Oh, that's why amazon.ch redirects to amazon.de... In general, manufacturers and retailers have more legal responsibility for what they sell here in Germany than in the USA, but it feels like Switzerland takes that even further, in good but more expensive ways.
    • comrade1234 1y ago
      There is no Amazon in Switzerland. Well, they probably have an office here for tax schemes, but there's no Amazon service. Instead we have Galaxus which is awesome and so I fully expect Amazon to buy it one day and ruin it.
  • rob74 1y ago
    And if my neighbor purchases a cheap battery-powered product that violates all electrical regulations from TEMU and the fire started by it burns down my apartment too, who's responsible then? I guess my neighbor, and the insurance will probably cover the costs, but I will still have lost the apartment and all the stuff that was in it. And customs will maybe look at big shipments, but can't hope to check even a tiny fraction of the millions of small packages.
• bamboozled 1y ago
  What on earth happened to free market capitalism, now you don’t want it? You want government intervention in the price of goods to manipulate outcomes ? Make up your mind and make it up quickly because I don't think the world will wait. People buy cheap junk because it’s cheap. Why do you think so few people buy American made tools ? Your government is now forcing you to buy expensive goods and you’re, “happy with it”? It’s wild. I’m one of those people who always purchased USA, British , Australian, I still but I've had to watch many of my favourite brands lose their soul and offshore only because consumers chose to stop supporting them. It was the choice of consumers. It's just the sad reality, I'm certain the fix isn't government intervention though.
• nailer 1y ago
  Likewise EU to US import rules were based on a World War II recovery concept. Europe is no longer recovering from World War II so asking them to pay a reciprocal tariff seems entirely reasonable whether you think Trump is a jackass or not.
  • rob74 1y ago
    Er, words mean things, you know? If Trump pulls a tariff out of thin air because he doesn't like it that the US has a trade deficit with a certain country (or because he doesn't like that that country is prosecuting one of his allies, as in Brazil's case), that maybe makes the tariff "retaliatory", but not "reciprocal". Last time I checked, the EU wasn't charging a 15% tax on imports from the US, but the US was.
    • nailer 1y ago
      [flagged]