Send Link mailing list submissions to
[email protected]
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[email protected]
You can reach the person managing the list at
[email protected]
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Link digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. U.S. Technology imports and Trump tariffs (Stephen Loosley)
2. Silicon photonics, a paradigm shift in the industry
(Stephen Loosley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 18:24:44 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] U.S. Technology imports and Trump tariffs
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Tech Industry
Trump tariffs would increase laptop prices by $350+, other electronics by as
much as 40%
By Avram Piltch published 16 hours ago
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/trump-tariffs-increase-laptop-electronics-prices
GOP candidate proposes a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, 10-plus percent on those
from other countries.
If Donald Trump wins the 2024 U.S. presidential election, your next laptop
could be a lot heavier . . . on your wallet.
During his current campaign, the GOP candidate and 45th president has promised
to impose massive tariffs of 10 to 20% on goods from all countries plus a
special 60% rate for those from China.
Those tariffs are paid by importers but are passed on to consumers in the form
of higher retail prices.
And according to a recent report by the CTA (Consumer Technology Association),
even Trump?s lowest proposed tariffs would have huge inflationary effects on
the cost of popular gadgets such as laptops, monitors, TVs, smartphones, and
desktop computers.
Working with analyst group TPW (Trade Partnership Worldwide), the CTA estimates
that a 10% global tariff + 60% China tariff would raise the cost of laptops by
45%.
That?s an additional $357 for models that hit what the organization considers
an average price point of $793.
Shoppers seeking premium models on the other hand, including most of those on
our lists of best ultrabooks or best gaming laptops, would see much higher
increases ? to the tune of $450 for every $1,000 of current pricing.
?Tariffs are regressive taxes that Americans pay. They?re not paid by a foreign
government,? Ed Brzytwa, CTA?s VP of International Trade, told Tom?s Hardware.
?They're taxes that importers in the United States pay and foreign governments
and foreign countries do not pay those tariffs. So when I say they're
regressive, it means that they harm poor people and people of little means more
than they harm wealthy people.?
Though importers, which could be import companies, OEMs or retailers, are
paying the tariff fees to the government, consumers will bear the burden.
Brzytwa said that nearly 100% of the cost of past tariffs, such as those
previously imposed by the Trump and Biden administrations against certain
Chinese imports (semiconductors, batteries, steel, minerals, electric vehicles,
medical products), were passed through to consumers.
Prices going up on phones, TVs, monitors, more
The CTA and TPW also estimate that the cost of smartphones would be 25.8%
higher, monitors would jump up 31.2%, and game consoles, which are largely
manufactured in China, would go up by 39.9%.
Because most of them are not manufactured in China, the retail price of
prebuilt desktop PCs would only increase by 6%.
All told, the cost of electronics would collectively rise by $90 billion each
year, costing U.S. consumers a lot more money and leading to fewer sales
overall.
.
The table below shows all of CTA?s price increase estimates.
Category Increase in Consumer Price (%) Lost Consumer Spending Power
Average Retail Cost Increase
Laptops and tablets 45.0% $32.5 billion $357 (laptops) / $201 (tablets)
Smartphones 25.8% $25.6 billion $213
Connected Devices 10.2% $7.9 billion $5 - $37
Video Game Consoles 39.9% $6.5 billion $246
Computer Accessories 10.9% $5.2 billion $25
Monitors 31.2% $5.0 billlion $109
Desktop Computers 6.2% $3.0 billlion $74
Televisions 9.0% $1.5 billion $48
Lithium-Ion Batteries 12.1% $1.5 billion Up to $11
Speakers & Headphones 10.9% $1.1 billion $29 / $35
(Data credit: Consumer Technology Association (CTA)?)
Tariffs assessed based "substantial transformation"
So how would the tariffs be assessed? Many electronics contain components that
come from China but are assembled elsewhere. Will importers pay tariffs at the
Chinese rate or the much lower, non-China rate? The answer depends upon whether
the components of the shipped product underwent a ?substantial transformation?
before they were shipped to the U.S.
The U.S. government?s International Trade Administration website gives examples
of substantial and non-substantial transformations. Using flour and sugar from
country A to bake a cookie in country B would be substantial, and therefore the
cookie would be assessed as coming from country B. But taking vegetables from
country C and freezing them in country D would not change their origin, because
freezing is not transformative enough.
Moving production to other countries takes time
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency assesses tariffs based on
the product value and country of origin that?s listed on the bills of lading
that shippers use. A laptop maker, for example, could try to lower its costs by
doing more of its assembly outside of China, but according to Brzytwa, that
can?t happen overnight.
?For many of the products, like laptops and tablets, smartphones . . . those
are by and large still made in China, although that is shifting,? Brzytwa said.
?You've seen over the last year announcements by a number of companies on
creating new manufacturing facilities or . . . using contract manufacturers,
but they're sourcing from countries other than China. But it's not in the
volumes that you would need to supplant that Chinese production.?
For example, Foxconn announced plans to expand server production capacity in
Mexico two weeks ago, citing 'crazy' demand for Nvidia's next-generation
Blackwell GPUs. And Malaysia has seen a massive boost in semiconductor
manufacturing, we reported in March.
Brzytwa posited that it can take years to set up new manufacturing facilities
and to get them rolling, however. So even if companies want to move more
production to low-cost manufacturing centers such as India, Vietnam or Mexico,
it won?t happen overnight. And meanwhile, they?d be paying a full 70% tariff
(60% + 10%) on China-made products. That?s why CTA?s report estimates that
laptop sales would be hit especially hard by Trump?s proposed tariffs: The U.S.
imports 79%t of its laptops and tablets from China.
We reached out to several laptop OEMs to ask them where their laptops are
currently manufactured, but none would provide precise information. Lenovo
confirmed to Tom?s Hardware that it has manufacturing facilities both inside
and outside of China (including Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan and North
Carolina). And Dell said only that it has a ?globally diverse supply chain with
Dell and partner-owned manufacturing facilities around the world.?
Brzytwa also noted that the CBP has significant investigative capabilities and
would not allow a company to claim that it had created a substantial
transformation to avoid the highest tariffs. Anyone caught cheating could face
penalties.
Could Trump actually implement these tariffs?
Unlike other taxes that a U.S. president might want to levy, tariffs do not
require congressional approval. So were Trump to be elected and face a
Democratic congress, he could still make his proposals a reality.
There are laws that the executive branch has used to impose tariffs in recent
years: Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade
Expansion Act of 1962. In 2018, Trump used Section 232, which empowers the
President to create trade restrictions based on national security concerns, to
impose a 25% tariff on all steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports, with
exemptions for some countries. In 2022, President Biden adjusted these tariffs,
giving some tariff-free export quotas to the EU and Japan.
Section 301 allows the United States Trade Representative, part of the
executive branch, to investigate and remedy trade problems. In 2020, Trump
imposed and Biden has continued huge tariffs on specific types of products from
China, including semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles,
certain minerals, ship-to-shore cranes, medical equipment, and an extra levy on
steel and aluminum.
How Trump?s tariffs could affect the GDP, job growth
In addition to CTA and TPW, other economists believe that the proposed Trump
tariffs would result in significantly higher consumer prices for electronics.
They also predict that the additional costs would not create a significant
number of U.S. jobs, but they would harm U.S. exports and reduce the country?s
overall GDP.
Erica York, senior economist and research director at the Tax Foundation, a
nonpartisan organization that promotes growth-friendly policies, recently wrote
an article stating that ?former President Donald Trump?s proposals to impose a
universal tariff of 20% and an additional tariff on Chinese imports of at least
60% would spike the average tariff rate on all imports to highs not seen since
the Great Depression.?
The Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% general + 60% China tariff would lower
GDP by 0.8%. If the general tariff were 20% ? the higher end of Trump?s
original proposal ? the estimate rises to 1.3%. Including a possible 10%
retaliatory tariff from other countries brings the GDP drain to 1.7%. The group
also estimates that the tariffs and retaliation would cost 1.4 million
full-time jobs over time.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA), a non-profit organization that
advocates for more domestic production, takes a different view. In July, it
published an analysis claiming that a universal 10% tariff (not a 20% tariff
and not a China-only, 60% tariff) would boost GDP by 2.86% and create 2.8
million jobs. The organization also proposes that, with the tariffs collected,
the Federal government could afford to and would give significant tax refunds
to low- and middle-income Americans who would then see their household incomes
rise. CPA makes no claims about electronics prices specifically.
In September, TPW published a rebuttal to the CPA?s analysis saying that the
CPA model incorrectly assumes that tariffs will raise U.S. productivity and
that other countries? retaliatory tariffs are not a factor. TPW also argues
that the U.S. does not have a large enough surplus of labor and capital to
suddenly divert new workers and investment into all the many tariffed
industries.
?There is no question that tariffs impose a cost on the economy,? York
said.?They?re not just economically costly because of their distortions for
economic activity, however, but they also impose costs by increasing trade
tensions, hurting our allies, and, on the scale Trump is proposing, leading to
massive disruptions.?
Trump considering even higher tariffs
Speaking of disruptions, Trump may want to implement tariffs that are much
higher than 10 or even 20%. During an interview this week at the Chicago
Economic Club, the GOP candidate told Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John
Micklethwait that 50% tariffs would be more effective in getting companies to
move their manufacturing operations to the U.S.
?If you want the companies to come in, the tariff has to be a lot higher than
10%, because 10% is not enough,? Trump said to Micklethwait. ?They?re not going
to do it for 10. But you make a 50% tariff, they?re going to come in.?
Do tariffs help or hurt?
Christine McDaniel, senior research fellow at George Mason University?s
Mercatus Center, agrees that new tariffs would lead to disruptive price
increases. ?Whether it's a 60% tariff, 10% tariff or 2000% tariff, it is going
to raise prices,? she told Tom?s Hardware.
McDaniel recently wrote a paper with University of Nebraska?s Edward J.
Balistreri called ?Waging a Global Trade War Alone: The Cost of Blanket Tariffs
on Tariffs on Friend and Foe.? In the paper, the authors predict that if the
U.S. institutes a 60% tariff on China and China retaliates (a likely scenario),
consumers and industry would lose $665 billion in purchasing / producing power.
McDaniel said that, while she doesn?t know exactly what Trump and his team have
in mind, it?s possible that they may be using the threat of tariffs to get some
concessions from other countries that they want.
?Another thing to keep in mind is that he's a deal maker,? she said. ?And you
may or may not like the deals he makes, but if you are that kind of deal maker,
you often want to start out with way more than you think you could get . . .
for leverage.?
McDaniel noted that Trump is obsessed with the trade balance and seemingly
wants to use tariffs to make the U.S. a net exporter of goods. However, she
posited that tariffs will not increase exports and that reducing or eliminating
the trade deficit is not necessarily desirable because it won?t improve the
overall economy. She noted that, when the U.S. has had a healthy economy with
lots of domestic consumption and foreign investment, there?s been a trade
deficit. When there?s a recession and consumers spend less, there?s a trade
surplus.
She also noted that tariffs can end up hurting the ability of American
manufacturers to be competitive, costing jobs. To back up her point, McDaniel
cited the example of InSinkErator, a U.S. company that makes in-sink garbage
disposals. She says the company suffered when the price of the steel and
aluminum it needs to make its products went higher after Trump?s 2018 steel
tariffs.
?It's clearly the case that those steel tariffs cost way more than they
helped,? she said.
Some of Trump?s own party leaders, who support his bid for president, are also
not fans of his tariff proposals. ?I?m not a fan of tariffs,? Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters in September. ?They raise the prices for
American consumers. I?m more of a free-trade kind of Republican that remembers
how many jobs are created by the exports that we engage in. So, I?m not a
tariff fan.?
Perhaps McConnell hopes that Trump?s tariff talk, as he suggested, is just a
negotiating tactic or hyperbole designed to draw support from those who want to
increase American manufacturing at all costs. However, if Trump wins the U.S.
presidential election and then follows through with even the smallest of his
proposed tariffs, you can expect to pay more for your next laptop, smartphone,
tablet, TV or PC than you do today.
--
By Avram Piltch
Avram Piltch is Tom's Hardware's editor-in-chief. When he's not playing with
the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find
him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC or coding plugins. With his
technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world
benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
--
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 20:40:09 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Silicon photonics, a paradigm shift in the industry
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Chip war: China claims breakthrough in silicon photonics that could clear
technical hurdle
A Wuhan-based lab has announced a ?milestone? that could help China overcome
restraints imposed by traditional chip-design technology
By Xinmei Shen Published: 10:00am, 6 Oct 2024.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3281156/chip-war-china-claims-breakthrough-silicon-photonics-could-clear-technical-hurdle
A state-funded lab in China has announced a breakthrough in chip-design
technology.
A state-funded semiconductor lab in China said it has achieved a ?milestone? in
the development of silicon photonics, which could help the country overcome
current technical barriers in chip design and achieve self-sufficiency amid US
sanctions.
JFS Laboratory ? based in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province and a
national base for photonics research ? was able to light up a laser light
source integrated with a silicon-based chip, the first time this was
successfully done in China, according to a blog post published by the lab last
week.
The achievement means that China has filled ?one of the few blanks? in its
optoelectronics technology, state media People?s Daily reported on Friday.
Silicon photonics rely on optical signals instead of electric signals for
transmission.
It aims to address the restraints imposed by current technology, as the
transmission of electric signals between chips is approaching its physical
limit, the lab said.
Established in 2021 with 8.2 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) in government
funding, JFS is one of China?s key institutions tasked with pursuing
technological breakthroughs.
Major players in the global semiconductor industry have devoted resources into
advancing silicon photonics, which is believed to hold the future to making
better chips for data and graphics processing, as well as artificial
intelligence (AI). Still, businesses have faced challenges in translating
scientific breakthroughs into commercial products.
https://www.scmp.com/topics/taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-company-tsmc
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world?s top contract chip
maker, is one of the companies working on the technology. Its vice-president,
Douglas Yu Chen-hua, last year said that a ?good silicon photonics integration
system? could address critical issues in energy efficiency and computing power
in the AI era.
That development would bring about a ?paradigm shift? in the industry, he said.
US chip design giants Nvidia and Intel, as well as China?s Huawei Technologies,
are also eyeing advances in silicon photonics. The global market for silicon
photonics chips is expected to reach US$7.86 billion by 2030, up from US$1.26
billion in 2022, according to estimates by SEMI, an international semiconductor
industry association.
[Photo: Companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company see
silicon photonics as the future of chip design. Reuters]
Silicon photonics may present an even bigger opportunity in China, where US
export controls on advanced chip-making technologies have hindered the
development of traditional semiconductors.
Silicon photonics chips can be produced domestically using ?relatively mature
raw materials and equipment? without relying on high-end extreme ultraviolet
(EUV) lithography machines, unlike electrical chips, Sui Jun, president of
Beijing-based semiconductor start-up Sintone, was quoted as saying by local
media in 2022.
EUV machines, required for making advanced chips, are considered the Achilles?
heel of the Chinese semiconductor industry, as domestic firms struggle to
mass-produce such tools. Netherlands-based ASML, which holds a virtual monopoly
on EUV machines, stopped exporting the equipment to China in 2019.
Silicon photonics could become ?an emerging front in US-China tech
competition?, according to a report published by US think tank Centre for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in January.
?While the US-led export controls are likely setting back China?s capabilities
in the manufacture of traditional chips ? [they] could also inadvertently
incentivise China to devote more resources to emerging technologies that will
play an important role in next-generation semiconductors,? Matthew Reynolds, a
former economics programme fellow at the CSIS, wrote in the report.
--
Xinmei Shen joined the Post in 2017 and is a technology reporter. She covers
content, entertainment, social media and internet culture. Previously, she was
with the Post?s tech news site, Abacus. Before that, she was a reporting intern
at The
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
[email protected]
https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
------------------------------
End of Link Digest, Vol 383, Issue 25
*************************************
