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PaperclipPerfector  30d ago (text post)   32462 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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Trump exempts smartphones and computers from new tariffs

US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones and computers from reciprocal tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports. The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China. The exemptions also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.

Some estimates suggested iPhone prices and other electronic goods in the US would have gone up three times if the costs of the tariffs had been passed on to consumers. Trump's move takes off "a huge black cloud overhang for now over the tech sector and the pressure facing U.S. Big Tech", said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a research note, according to the Associated Press.

The US is a major market for iPhones, while Apple accounted for more than half of its smartphones sales last year, according to Counterpoint Research. It says as much as 80% of Apple's iPhones intended for US sale are made in China, with the remaining 20% made in India. Along with fellow smartphone giants such as Samsung, Apple has been trying to diversify its supply chains to avoid over-reliance on China in recent years. India and Vietnam emerged as frontrunners for additional manufacturing hubs. As tariffs took effect, Apple reportedly looked to speed up and increase its production of India-produced devices in recent days.

Lot of sound and fury, but it seems at the end of the day nothing will happen. Over/under on how many more 'exemptions' we'll end up with?

What an awful sign for our civilization --- Trump's reversal reflects our lack to accept short term pain to achieve long term objectives. For my purposes here, it doesn't matter whether the tariffs on phones would have actually helped: what matters is that Trump believed they would, that he was the duly elected head of state, that imposing tariffs was within his legitimate authority, and that he had a majority in the legislature as well.

He still couldn't do it. If he couldn't, nobody can. And if our societal time preference really is this high, we are fucked.

What makes you think Trump thinks the tariffs on phones would have helped? Just by imposing and exempting he promotes the desired diversification from China without having the country take the short-term pain. Win-win.

If we can make a phone, we can make AI killbots. If we can't make a phone, we can't make killbots. The Chinese can make both. They will win the next war if they have killbots and we don't, and it won't even be close.

We need domestic electronics manufacturing capabilities. All the pain-free ways of building them have failed. Tariffs might have worked. They probably wouldn't have, but they might have. And we didn't give them a chance because we cannot endure short term pain. That means we're fucked.

If we can make a phone, we can make AI killbots. If we can't make a phone, we can't make killbots. The Chinese can make both. They will win the next war if they have killbots and we don't, and it won't even be close.

I like the vibe but I think you're imagining different kinds of killbots than I am? Aside from microprocessors I believe phones and killbots have very different tech trees?

Microprocessors, RAM, flash memory, cameras, digital radios, accelerometers, batteries, GPS... a small drone is basically just a smartphone + some brushless motors and a plastic body. You even need the display tech, it just moves to the control device.

A larger drone or another type of killbot might require more — jet engines or advanced robotics tech or whatever — but it will still require pretty much everything in the smartphone tree.

We'll just start an old-timey war effort to re-purpose old smartphones for military purposes. Win the War with your Brains and Brawn by recycling your old smartphones!

But more seriously, domestic production of smartphones is possible. Purism produces a Made in USA smartphone if you don't mind not having the SOTA. I expect interest in this space to increase from here.

There's plenty of US ally civilian manufacturers for all those things. And US manufacturers also, though they tend to be aimed at the military or aerospace markets and so cost a lot more.

Indeed. The closest thing to killbots we have are made by Boston Dynamics, which is owned by Hyundai -- though Boston Dynamics swears they won't weaponize the things. If you want flying killbots, there's General Atomics and there's Anduril, both fully American.

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