Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff. Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff. Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff. Fuckin brilliant. A+ work here team. I am so glad there are such smart people working on our trade policy.

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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 13-Apr-2025 23:51:59 JST Paul Cantrell

   Paul Krugman’s latest brings up a point I’d missed:

   This chicken-with-its-head-cut-off tariff policymaking is now “putting much higher tariffs on intermediate goods used in manufacturing than on final goods” (see screenshot below, taken from the article).

   That means Trump has actually managed to •disincentivize• electronics manufacturing in the US.

   …or at least this second, but who knows what US policy will be in 15 minutes? Way to go, geniuses! Companies, come invest here! You’ll get screwed now, but at least you can’t count on the future at all! USA! USA!

   https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-trump-tariffs-just-got-even-worse