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Trump threatens 25% tariff on all Chinese made consumer electronics (impacting PS4, Switch, & Xbox)

Deleted member 5666

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A pretty massive price hike in the US on most video game related products may be in the pipeline if Trump goes through with his threat as most of them are manufactured in China and are considered consumer electronics.

United States (US) President Donald Trump expects to carry on and raise tariffs on US$200 billion in Chinese imports to 25% from the current 10% and is "highly unlikely" to accept China's plea to hold off the tariff hike due on January 1.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Mr Trump repeated his threat to slap tariffs on all remaining imports from China, adding that "the only deal would be (that) China has to open up their country to competition from the US".

"If we don't make a deal, then I'm going to put the US$267 billion additional (tariffs) on," at a tariff rate of either 10% or 25%, Mr Trump told the media publication.
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https://www.ig.com/au/news-and-trad...ns-to-go-ahead-and-raise-china-tariffs-181127

Trump told the Wall Street Journal Monday that it's possible the U.S. will apply new tariffs to Chinese-made consumer tech products like the iPhone. The new tariff could be either 10% or 25%, the president said. His comments come four days before he will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping for trade talks.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90272668/trump-threatens-a-25-tariff-on-the-iphone-and-apple-laptops
 
kennyamr

kennyamr

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Time to move some of the production out of China :v


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Edit: I never said it's going to the US, but yeah, I think Vietnam has nice weather this time of the year :p
 
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hibikase

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If it's all electronics then it shouldn't be on the video game side.
 
NewDust

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Doesn't Sony have a (minor) production and or assembly line for PS4's in Japan? Not saying that would suffice...
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 5666

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hibikase said:
If it's all electronics then it shouldn't be on the video game side.
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It's in Etc too but the fact it would impact the video game industry directly made me think it is very relevant to gamers interests, as many gamers don't follow political news in the Etc side or even in general.

Finding out that video game systems and video games may suddenly have a massive price increase across the board would be destructive to the gaming industry as a whole.
 
Marossi

Marossi

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Something similar like this happens in Brazil, this is a bad precedent.

I wonder if the gamergaters will eat this up.
 
Ereineon

Ereineon

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Nov 8, 2017
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well.... he has done worse already.... so not unexpected... im sorry for our fellow americans >_< (and not excactly for this)
 
Ionic

Ionic

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Oct 31, 2017
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hibikase said:
If it's all electronics then it shouldn't be on the video game side.
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I don't see why a large tariff on game consoles isn't relevant to gaming side just because it also affects phones.

If this goes through I look forward to seeing people talking about how making their game console more expensive of all things is final straw for them on this administration.
 
SpinlyLimbs

SpinlyLimbs

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Don't give a fuck about politics or a price of entertainment goods. If that means less factories surrounded by suicide nets and children with bloody hands at the end of the day that's a good thing.
 
Mister X

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So they will move to even cheaper places to produce these consoles. Does he think this will help companies relocate fabrication to the US?
 
OP
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Deleted member 5666

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Mister X said:
So they will move to even cheaper places to produce these consoles. Does he think this will help companies relocate fabrication to the US?
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Problem is, even if they moved that isn't some simple thing. These companies have their entire manufacturing process built around these Chinese plants, shipping parts to and from China and so on. It would take multiple years to try and rebuild this (let alone train labor) somewhere else and in the mean time there would be massive massive price increases across the board.
 
SpinlyLimbs

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Oheao said:
I highly doubt that's the part of Chinese production that Trump takes issue with.
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I highly doubt it too. But if that ends up being a result it's a good thing. If it means China has to actually compete in terms of quality instead of price it's also a good thing. I recently bought a rice cooker made in Japan, it being like 10x the price of the previous rice cooker I bought that was made in China it already feels 100x the quality. Hopefully markets shift back to making things that are built to last instead of shit quality with low price at the cost of borderline slave labor.
 
OP
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Deleted member 5666

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SpinlyLimbs said:
I highly doubt it too. But if that ends up being a result it's a good thing. If it means China has to actually compete in terms of quality instead of price it's also a good thing. I recently bought a rice cooker made in Japan, it being like 10x the price of the previous rice cooker I bought that was made in China it already feels 100x the quality. Hopefully markets shift back to making things that are built to last instead of shit quality with low price at the cost of borderline slave labor.
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The thing is some of these various industries, such as the gaming industry in this example, would crash having to undergo massive price hikes as video games are not a "need". Many gaming companies would likely be forced out of business in the process.
 
nekomix

nekomix

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Oct 30, 2017
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Do it Donald ! Crash the companies that make the US still powerful. GAFAM could eat the loss but the bloodbath for the others...
 
SpinlyLimbs

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Cheebo said:
The thing is some of these various industries, such as the gaming industry in this example, would crash having to undergo massive price hikes as video games are not a "need". Many gaming companies would likely be forced out of business in the process.
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Maybe. But if wages increase, it might not be so much of a problem. Economics is a clusterfuck of guesswork

Phantom Thief said:
Everyone move to Canada, our leader isn't a maniac.
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I don't know, every drama teacher I had in school was a maniac ;)
 

Deleted member 23212

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SpinlyLimbs said:
I highly doubt it too. But if that ends up being a result it's a good thing. If it means China has to actually compete in terms of quality instead of price it's also a good thing. I recently bought a rice cooker made in Japan, it being like 10x the price of the previous rice cooker I bought that was made in China it already feels 100x the quality. Hopefully markets shift back to making things that are built to last instead of shit quality with low price at the cost of borderline slave labor.
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The production would just move somewhere else with poor working conditions, I think South Asia and Africa are the upcoming industrial bases.
 
JahIthBer

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This trade war stuff will hopefully end in early 2019 due to Trump's approval rating dropping in the likes of iowa, he wants to win 2020 obviously, but if he does win 2020, the trade war will be back on in 2021. Fun times ahead....
 
Pirateluigi

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Oct 27, 2017
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SpinlyLimbs said:
I highly doubt it too. But if that ends up being a result it's a good thing. If it means China has to actually compete in terms of quality instead of price it's also a good thing. I recently bought a rice cooker made in Japan, it being like 10x the price of the previous rice cooker I bought that was made in China it already feels 100x the quality. Hopefully markets shift back to making things that are built to last instead of shit quality with low price at the cost of borderline slave labor.
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Historically, tariffs and quotas dont do that and can actually make working conditions worse.
 
Empyrean Cocytus

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IIRC, doesn't Sony and MS produce a lot of their consoles and software in Japan, Mexico, and the US? I know most of their production is in China, but they could expand out of there.

Nintendo is firmly 100% in China though.
 
Riversands

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I think the purpose of this is to move the production to US which will strengthen dollar's power.
This can be a bad news which means it is going to be pretty expensive to some countries whose currency being weak against dollar
 
Danzflor

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Haee said:
Something similar like this happens in Brazil, this is a bad precedent.

I wonder if the gamergaters will eat this up.
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They should be the first group, The Real Gamers™, who should be pitchofork raising right now, but, as always, they'll produce the craziest mental gymnastics ever seen in order to support this.

And as you mention, yeah in Brazil they actually gave more jobs to the people living there -making the consoles in-house- but the console prices skyrocketed and videogames are pretty much a luxury now. Not a good sign.
 
ThankDougie

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Oheao said:
I highly doubt that's the part of Chinese production that Trump takes issue with.
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and plenty of other industries have that problem anyway. the Trump tariffs in place have already hurt American and Canadian industries (see the GM plant closures). all signs point to a tariff like this one ultimately doing the same thing.
 
Aters

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SpinlyLimbs said:
What if tarriffs were specifically aimed at any country with shitty working conditions could that not be a good thing? I doubt that would happen but if it did would it not be a good thing?
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So basically all developing countries? Well if these poor workers can't find work to do in factories, they gotta work somewhere, and usually it's not any better than factory.
 

mclem

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Oct 25, 2017
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Wohl's cunning plan; convince his acolytes to destroy their gaming hardware and they can remain in denial that this has a far-ranging impact.
 
Piccoro

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I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of gamergaters suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
 
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