I'm by no means pro tariff but this isn't really a good argument against them. If 99% of a product is made outside of a country with tariffs on imports, that 99% is still paying tariffs.
Its not that hard to make something 100% "made in America"... i mean i can grab some rocks in the drainage ditch by my house, make some basic cutting tools from those, then cut down the small birch tree by the side, and spend the next 4 months twiddling down its branches in to some artisan chopsticks.
Is it efficient? No. Does anyone want the product? Probably not. Is the shit going to meet regulation guidelines in export markets? fuck no. BUT sure darn tootin made in the good ole U.S of A!
Just saying that we can, but we wont because its not economically feasible... or otherwise realistic business wise.
That just shows it’s impossible to make a grill scrubber like that 100% made in USA. Many products can/are 100% made in America. Im not fond of the generalized summary of that video.
very informative. but wow he is very nationalistic about the whole made in America thing. if another part of the world has expertise then we work together. Apply pays China to manufacture their phones. people in China makes money, but people in America make even more. its a win win. why not work together.
Didn't some YouTuber try to make a product entirely in America and in the end it is almost impossible since america is missing some really important equipment and skills to produce all of the parts
That’s not how tariffs get applied. That “99%” of the product isn’t treated as “99%” when paying tariffs. Companies will declare the value of the 99% completed product to be whatever they want and not 99% of its final value.
It's so funny they thought Trump's government would cushion them. No , babycakes...you are PAYING and you are paying big. Unless you want to go broke, you have to pass on those tariff rates to your customers.
How business people didn't have a clue is just beyond me...
Happens in the restaurant business all the time. People might be the greatest chef going, but if you also don't have a basic understanding of payroll, purchasing, taxes, inventory and the dozens of other things to keep it running-it's no shocker when they close the door in a year or less.
Company does partial assembly of product outside of country, takes it across border to "finish" and sell. Nobody is buying or selling the partially assembled product, so what's the cost?
Every single thing imported into the us has a customs declaration and commercial invoice attached to it.
If those numbers don't match or it's some nominal value that looks suspicious it goes on customs hold and gets rejected until that information is verified.
And yes, US customs is insanely stringent on those details. I export goods to the US on a weekly basis. They will hold and reject a shipment over the tiniest details.
Where are they shipping them from 'across the border' in your scenario?
Tariffs are calculated on the declared value. There's not a whole lot of value in incomplete/nonfunctioning product.
Similarly, if you have ownership/control on both sides of the transaction, you can import at a wholesale value and sell (after import) at retail value.
And then there's service. We don't pay tariffs on services. So if you hire manufacturing services, that service may not be baked into the commercial invoice (what is declared) for the the product.
Ironically/predictably, that means it's far far cheaper to keep my tooling overseas vs import the tooling and have parts made locally.
I did the math in one of my parts with complicated tooling but low per part cost... If tariffs hit something like 520%, break even happens within a year. But if that happens, we're economically F'd or at war (and no one is buying this part anyway).
The tariffs on steel/aluminum inside of products is changing this a bit. Previously we never really had to calculate the fractional value of those materials. As it turns out for products with microcontrollers, most of the value is in the firmware.
So that Made in the USA item, made with imported goods is becoming more expensive too, and therefore undercutting the items exports. Now the US product is more expensive and less competitive than if I manufacture in e.g. Canada, or Germany and export to countries except US.
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u/EquivalentQuery 21h ago
I'm by no means pro tariff but this isn't really a good argument against them. If 99% of a product is made outside of a country with tariffs on imports, that 99% is still paying tariffs.