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China United States Apple Hardware Technology

New Trump Tariffs Won't Include Fitness Trackers Or the Apple Watch (theverge.com) 81

According to Bloomberg, the next round of China tariffs won't include devices that receive and transmit voice data, a category that includes the Apple Watch, Fitbits, Sonos Speakers, and a host of other fitness trackers and home assistants. The Verge reports: The White House recently backed down on the rate at which the imports would be taxed. Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported that listed goods would likely be taxed at only 10 percent. As recently as August, President Trump had considered setting the rate at 25 percent. Customs documents describe the category in vague terms, listing the devices as "machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data." But that vague category has come to encompass a wide range of personal tech, including fitness trackers and personal voice assistants. The Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod, BeatsWL, AirPort, and Time Capsule all fall under the code, according to a letter submitted by Apple to the U.S. Trade Representative. Other categories of Apple products will still be affected by the tariff, including adapters, the Mac mini, and any circuit boards or internal components shipped individually to the United States.
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New Trump Tariffs Won't Include Fitness Trackers Or the Apple Watch

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  • PTL (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    and pass the MAGA

    The orange idiot rages on

    Enjoy your inflation, Trumpanzees

  • In other words (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Monday September 17, 2018 @07:13PM (#57331198)
    No tariffs on any technology that can be used to spy on Americans. Hmm.... Nope, that's not suspicious at all!
    • by Anonymous Coward

      You got it backwards: Tax exemptions for companies willing to deliver tracking data to the NSA.

      • willing to deliver tracking data to the NSA.

        Probably most implementation will be so bad (rushing to slap "voice capability" on any gadget, just to avoid tariffs. - See Amazon's Alexa-enabled microwave oven to get an idea of how far this shit can go)
        that the manufacturer probably won't be needed to be willing.
        Merely "existing" would open them enough to hacking.

        Meaning large gaping security hole for any criminal or script kiddie to attack.

    • No tariffs on any technology that can be used to spy on Americans. Hmm.... Nope, that's not suspicious at all!

      yup, even more so : as all it takes to avoid tariffs is apparently to slap some voice data capability on anything.

      thus you can expect tons of gadget that haphazardly add voice capabilities that barely make sense, just to skip on the tariffs.
      So lots of buggy implementation in IoT devices *with mic*.

      Probably even in your next microwave oven (case in point, in a related /. story, Amazon has exactly announced that !)

      A paradise to happily hack into, for any three letter agencies (probably the original intent).
      Or

  • by Jahoda ( 2715225 ) on Monday September 17, 2018 @07:15PM (#57331212)
    I just think it's great that the american taxpayer can foot the bill for an objective idiot to play out his mercantilist fantasies in advance of his pending resignation/removal from office. More dumbass bullshit, just like with his trillion dollar welfare check to the 1%.
  • Products that have no reason to have voice input and output are going to include voice control features just to get around the tariffs. This kind of market distortion is the worst kind of government interference in the free market there is, where real progress is masked by pointless "progress" in a direction that is coerced by government interference. Samsung and Baidu have already developed their voice assistant technology, so this market distortion isn't even going to necessarily benefit American comp

    • So they'll add pointless cost and features to get around tariffs being imposed only by America? Seems like whatever they save by avoiding the tariffs they'll lose in added manufacturing cost.
      • by jrumney ( 197329 )
        The tariffs are >20% of the value of the product. A cheap mic is a few cents. Do the math.
    • by beckett ( 27524 )
      install listening device, avoid tariffs?
  • Trump Derangement Syndrome is what he and his followers all have.
  • by spitzak ( 4019 ) on Monday September 17, 2018 @07:46PM (#57331378) Homepage

    Do phones fall in this category? Seems like a huge detail was left out of summary.

  • These items are worthless to me. How about we put a 100% tariff on those items and take it off for all of the useful stuff.

  • Donald Trump is about to raise taxes on working class Americans by $200 billion dollars and nary a peep from them. If they had somebody like Karl Rove running their show they'd be on MSNBC non stop hammering that point home. But they never learn. Hell, if anyone should know that's the Republican's Achilles heel it's the party that beat Bush "Read my Lips" Sr....
    • by Anonymous Coward

      This is a perfect example of working class voters voting against their own interest and getting exactly what they voted for (and deserve).

    • Bush Sr. didn't raise the taxes willingly, that would be the majority Democrat congress that pushed for taxes. Like they always do. They convince people that the country's economy and the national budget are the same thing. But go ahead, deflect away and act as though Bush raised taxes single-handedly. Funny how the Executive branch can't actually do that, but the legislature can.

  • Other categories of Apple products will still be affected by the tariff, including adapters, the Mac mini, and any circuit boards or internal components shipped individually to the United States.

    I find it funny/sad that they keep mentioning the Mac mini, which Apple has downgraded in 2014 and haven't updated ever since.

  • by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @10:44AM (#57334730)

    Tarriffs affecting Cell phones... don't impact Apple so much, as their product is already the most expensive.
    On the other hand: the impact on Chinese eBay sellers selling competitive alternatives at super-low rates and cheaper Android phones may be enormous --- this may put them out of business (By causing a high burden to compliance.... consumers buy something on eBay from overseas, and will start suddenly finding out that your orders going to be held by customs --- that might be a 2 to 5% then you have to pay that duty plus an extra $50 or more in extra handling, processing and storage fees that were incurred when your item was found to require being held) resulting in less competition against larger retailers and manufacturers.

    • A 10% tarriff on a $150 unbranded Android phone makes the phone cost $165.

      A 10% tarriff on a $1,000 iPhone makes that phone cost $1,100.

      That has two effects: 1) the iPhone may be pushed just out of the affordability range of some people, while that's not likely to happen for the cheap Android phone; 2) the price difference between the two increases from $850 to $935.

      I don't see how this is an advantage for expensive Apple over the cheap competition. Also many shipments from eBay or Aliexpress are out of US

      • by mysidia ( 191772 )

        I don't see how this is an advantage for expensive Apple over the cheap competition.

        Probably because your scenario isn't necessarily what happens. Try :

        1. A 10% ad valorem tariff on an unbranded Android phone that retails for $150 with an assessed value or cost of $130 (Before retail markup for sale to end customer) makes the phone cost $163 because of $13 in tarriffs.

        2. A 10% ad valorem tariff on an iPhone that retails for $400 with an assessed value of $175 (Before retail markup for sale to

  • I predict a sudden surge in things which now are "machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data."

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