High tariffs become ‘real’ with our first $36K bill
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30 Comments
duxup
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.
haswell
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.
walthamstow
> 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
donohoe
I'm in a "Verifying you are human. This may take a few seconds." loop trying to load this post.
I'm so sick and tired of Cloudflare at this point.
rrrrooofl
[dead]
geerlingguy
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…
hypeatei
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.
bgirard
> 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?
reverendsteveii
[flagged]
grey-area
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.
snowwrestler
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.
tlogan
> 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.
avsteele
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
the__alchemist
Has anyone tried ordering a prototype PCB lately? Holy fuck. Prototype and small-run PCBs are effectively dead if you're in the US.
paulkrush
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…
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.
blitzar
Hostile and political. Fake news – everyone knows China paid. (/s)
Fokamul
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.
r0ckarong
Winning so hard right now.
somanyphotons
I hope they list out the tarrif costs explicitly at online checkout time
iancmceachern
And where is this money going? Is it going to be used to directly help companies like Adafruit which are being directly harmed?
sharpshadow
That’s intense and probably Made in USA products when they become available will cost adjacent the same.
nrclark
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.
molszanski
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
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.
more_corn
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
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 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
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
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.
geor9e
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
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.