Re: silca and Tariffs

On 4/27/2025 12:16 PM, Roger Merriman wrote:

AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 4/27/2025 9:15 AM, Roger Merriman wrote:

John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 04:47:34 -0400, Catrike Ryder
<Soloman@old.bikers.org> wrote:
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On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 07:40:05 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
wrote:
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On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:33:53 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
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On 4/26/2025 1:15 PM, cyclintom wrote:

On Sat Apr 26 13:41:16 2025 Catrike Ryder  wrote:

On 26 Apr 2025 09:14:12 GMT, Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> wrote:
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<https://youtu.be/VKz5J5PPt-Q?si=ntPrbZPhCguTIuQM>
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Josh of Silca does a good job of explaining how the tariffs are effecting
US companies certainly small ones, as ever it?s a moving target so may well
change.
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Roger Merriman

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Many countries have tariffs on products from the USA. I see no reason
why the USA shouldn't have tariffs on their products. Maybe it will
bring manufacturing back, maybe not. The USA used to be a
manufacturing powerhouse and the bureaucratic jackasses let it slip
away. I don't know if Trump's plans can save the country, but it was
definatly going to hell with the same old, same old plans. At least
he's trying something new.

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According to the Democrats tarriffws are good for other countries but
not for Ameriucs. It was perfectly OK for Clinton to apply larger
tarrifs to foreign goods than TGrump is doing but perfectly awful for
Trump to do titfor tat..
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Time to put these people away.

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You do not understand the problem.  Duty disparities are
broad, deep, convoluted and often at multiple cross
purposes. Oh, and they span every administration since
nearly forever.
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All that applies in spades to domestic micromanagement in
targeted areas in this and every country, what with
incentives (bribes) and disincentives (punishment) of a
hundred flavors in thousand of iterations.
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Small example-
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United States of America is written in Japanese as Beikoku:
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https://www.pngegg.com/en/png-fnrij
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or "rice" + "country", as the reformation of language in the
1860s was contemporaneous with plentiful and inexpensive
American rice imports.
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That was long, long ago, before nearly all Japanese
administrations encouraged (subsidized)  extremely small
inefficient farms. Along with the votes of farmers, whose
numbers would decrease if farms were combined into larger
fields. (this is happening in USA now, a continuance of a
long trend, with more food production from less labor, but a
side effect is decreased farmer votes. In some counties this
has had major political effect.)
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https://ap.fftc.org.tw/article/1327
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And don't think we're better. Review USA sugar subsidies,
price supports and duties which are no better than policies
for rice in Japan.
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Or the Harley Tax. Or the Chicken Tax.
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I have been an importer of tubular bicycle tires across a
half dozen entities, including Yellow Jersey, for over 50
years. That's a product we have not made here in USA since
before The Great Pacific War.  I pay import duty on each and
every tire and the rate hasn't changed, up or down, in a
half century.

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Ah but... what would be the cost of setting up a factory and
manufacturing bike tires in the  U.S.? Is it possible for the U.S. to
compete with foreign bicycle tire makers?

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I suspect that building a bicycle tire factory costs less then the
building an automobile factory and auto manufacturers have been moving
their factories around for years.

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True and usually for very good reasons, cost of operations. Normal
minimum salary in Mexico were a number of car factories have recently
open is US $2.04/hour while in the U.S. it is $7.25/hour.

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It’s also where the skilled labour plus equipment is, such as Silca
couldn’t find a motor or battery of the right specifications at certainly
not at a economic cost, I believe some us Military drone manufacturers
motors could be bought but would result in cost well above the market for
such things.
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Ie manufacturing takes decades to transfer from countries.
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Roger Merriman
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Or not.
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Bicycle assembly plants magically appeared in Cambodia a few
years ago (QC, fit & finish, packing all top quality IMHO)
and are now leaving.
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See also Apple in India.
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 Assembly is rather less skilled labour than say making Carbon frames or
other construction of parts, and India has like China been growing its
manufacturing base over many decades, Apple among other phone manufacturers
have there supply chain heavily dependent on China hence they needed a
exemption, even if they also have assembly lines in India.
 Roger Merriman
 

  +1
Moving assembly facilities is a far cry from moving facilities where the raw materials are processed. In the context of the self-inflicted US tariff war, moving an assembly factory to the US would offer little benefit unless the parts are exempted from tariffs. The added labor costs would offset any savings in the tariff on the finished product. Sure, automation would be of some help to offset labor costs, but then you have the cost of building and maintaining the robotics, which themselves would be subject to tariffs.