Topic: Updates on Vietnam #2

@skywake

I’ve only said that America is doing it for their own self interest. So far they’ve gotten much capitulation.

A quick jaunt in their website shows most D2 accessories are being made in Vietnam with China and Cambodia in the mix. But almost all S1 stuff was made in China.

And I am sure you will take much enjoyment from this perspective as you see Switch 2 stock shortages in the US and increased accessory pricing. Of which you probably won't be able to as easily afford as there is inflation elsewhere in the economy to accommodate for a universal 10% tax on imports

Also, while I have made much out of the idiocy of the US putting trade restrictions on Australia in this thread. Both because I'm Australian but also because we're a good example of how idiotic this is. As a consumer? Hey, I'm not complaining here. With US demand lower and heavy supply chain restrictions into the US? All that does for me as an Australian consumer is increase supply to Australia. Which reduces costs here

As long as I don't, you know, look at what my retirement savings are doing....... or think about what this does in my region when the US is making China a more attractive partner than the US.....

The problem with applying tariffs to EVERY country in the world, including uninhabited ones, is that it defeats the purpose of a tariff.

Tariffs are meant to limit imports of goods from one country into another by making it more expensive to import into the tariff applying country.

This will do a number of things: increase domestic production, limit income to the tariffed country, limiting their funds for things such as war or other unsavoury things, and also encourage trade with other countries.

It's meant to damage the stability of an industry in another country. It's why everyone tariffed Russia and got stuff from elsewhere. It harms Russia, benefits other countries, and if something is still imported from Russia, free tax revenue for the country in question.

Now if you apply that to every country in existence? You no longer have alternative countries to trade with, because the tariff applies to them too. So limiting supply from every country means one thing: you've not tariffed anyone, you've only taxed yourself.

This isn't tariffs on imports from other countries to strong arm them. This is an import tax on everything going into the US.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-considering-...

Japan has revealed some of the terms of the deal they’re about to reach with the U.S.

@rallydefault I don't recall overzeal's deleted post, but the implication in that reuters article that Japan may 'negotiate' with the US by buying more rice which they apparently already wanted to do is pretty funny. Now Japan and Vietnam just needs to figure out a way to convince the US that cheaper console accessories would be a concession...

At risk of highlighting the deleted post and my response to it IIRC it was an attempt to paint themselves and this thread as non-political. They weren't particularly enamoured by my suggestion that these reports of "progress" is just a sideshow. And that pretending it's all good and there's nothing to see here is FAR more political than, you know, highlighting the obvious costs, risks and unpredictability of this clown show

@skywake

Whether it 'works' or not almost seems irrelevant to me.
Even if countries sign a deal with the Trump administration, they're not going to remain idle and simply wait for America to throw another tantrum in another 4-8 years. Canada, Mexico, Japan, they all signed agreements with the first Trump administration.

And the fact that the stock market went down and bonds were sold off at the same time should be extremely worrying for Americans.

@Uncle_Franklin
Yeah, there's very much a sense of unease and risk aversion from both companies and countries around this. Regardless of how much the US might want to claim mission accomplished what's actually happening is the world making what deals they can excluding the US. Which is almost by definition bad for the US and any country or company who benefits from the US being a dominant player

So while as @FishyS the US may want to gloat about Japan agreeing to import more rice (and let's pause to think about how stupid that statement is) while that's happening Japan is also negotiating closer trade agreements with China and South Korea. Which I would argue is a good thing.... but probably not an ideal outcome if you're the US and your goal is to challenge the economic power of China