Friday, May 24th 2024
Biden Administration to Revive Trump-Era Tariffs on China-made GPUs and Motherboards
The US Trade Representative (USTR) under Biden administration is preparing to reinstate tariffs on certain technology products imported from China, including GPUs and motherboards. The 25% duties, initially imposed by the Trump administration in 2019 but later suspended, are being revived as part of broader efforts to address concerns over China's economic and trade practices. The tariffs are intended to protect American companies from what the administration describes as unfair Chinese trade actions like intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers that undermine U.S. competitiveness. While no specific effective date was provided, the reinstated tariffs are expected to impact major Chinese computing component suppliers significantly. The revival of the Trump-era tariffs marks a reversal from the previous administration's move to temporarily suspend the duties in 2020 as a goodwill gesture during broader trade negotiations with Beijing.
However, those talks ultimately stalled amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising bilateral tensions over economic and national security issues. Industry groups have expressed concerns that reviving the tariffs could disrupt tech supply chains, increase costs for U.S. companies and consumers, and potentially invite further Chinese retaliation. The tariffs would apply to GPUs, motherboards and other computing components assembled in China regardless of whether the raw components themselves originated from the country. With tensions already elevated over issues like Taiwan and advanced semiconductor production, the tariff announcement could set the stage for further economic friction between the world's two largest economies absent a negotiated resolution on tech trade.
Sources:
US Trade Representative, via Tom's Hardware
However, those talks ultimately stalled amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising bilateral tensions over economic and national security issues. Industry groups have expressed concerns that reviving the tariffs could disrupt tech supply chains, increase costs for U.S. companies and consumers, and potentially invite further Chinese retaliation. The tariffs would apply to GPUs, motherboards and other computing components assembled in China regardless of whether the raw components themselves originated from the country. With tensions already elevated over issues like Taiwan and advanced semiconductor production, the tariff announcement could set the stage for further economic friction between the world's two largest economies absent a negotiated resolution on tech trade.
95 Comments on Biden Administration to Revive Trump-Era Tariffs on China-made GPUs and Motherboards
Impressive.
Anyways... if this is the case with tariffs, then I will be holding on to this PC longer than expected. Will not be forking out for any new hardware until they pull them back.
Anyways thread is already off the rails.
Unfortunately for us, China has a strength of being able to withstand short-term losses for the benefit of a long-term goal. Our system is too focused on the now and the appeasement of a collective of investors to be able to achieve similar long-term goals. Instead, it seems like we are all wringing out every last drop out of what we have at the present, to the detriment of the future. It really is odd, if you look at it, that such giant US companies can't afford to be a solution.
1st world was USA+friends. 2nd world was USSR+friends. 3rd world was everyone else / neutrals.
With the collapse of the USSR, there's a bunch of countries (India, China, etc. etc.) vying for that 2nd world place. China has historical connections to the USSR / Soviet Bloc though, even if its modern philosophy is clearly closer to Legalism rather than Communism.
Just couple of notes - to the dude and Australian nuclear subs - please reread news about them. They do not exist - they will be there after a decade at earliest.
To the dude who said Taiwan is 2000 km from China - wut??? Cut the number 10 times.
To the dude about deployed laser weapons - you might want to reread about them as well, especially their targets. Even the most basic ballistic missiles are out of scope, much less those at hypersonic speeds.
We could go into other stuff like why would Australia or Japan join war against China if China goes visiting Taiwan, but oh well...
As far as I am concerned it will happen until 2030, hopefully we all will have new PC's by then and some fabs are up and running in the West.
Taiwan has the capacity right now for the fabs you mention. That is the issue for China. If China thought they could they would have invaded as soon as America restricted them from chips made in their backyard. What the News tells you and what is the truth are often times very different. My father worked on the F22 in the early 80s. I can promise you that as soon as it was confirmed that China had a 3rd Aircraft Carrier, Australia had probably already been supplied with some of the existing fleet. If there is one thing that the US are very capable of producing it is Nuclear Subs so you might be right in the fleet being complete by 2035.
The reality is those 2 types of missiles are going to be rarely used and can already be defeated by current AD in a carrier group or with current GBAD. Here is a article for instance about a US ship shooting down Iranian medium range ballistic anti ship missiles recently: taskandpurpose.com/news/uss-carney-deployment-anti-ship-ballistic-missiles/ Patriot has already shot down Kinzhals in Ukraine too.
They're dangerous but they're not some unstoppable wonderwaffe with 100% effectiveness. Nor are they cheap or easy to produce (the exact opposite in fact, costs alone are borderline unfeasible and production rates are typically less than 10 month for instance for Russia's Kinzhal) so they can't be spammed endlessly or frequently.
The big worry the US and other countries have is swarms of cheap drones with mediocre flight characteristics but deadly explosive packages (ie. Shaheeds), or larger waves of cruise missiles (ie. Kh101, which have production rates of around 100-150 monthly by Russia vs thousands for Shaheeds) in conjuction with the drones, that are deployed with other missiles to saturate AD and cause attacks to get through. Or to cause reduction of AD when anti missile weapon stockpiles are expended and AD becomes ineffective for want of ammo from being forced to defend against the cheap and easy to produce drones constantly*. The 100KW Iron Beam, and other less powerful but still effective laser systems, are ideal for use against them in those types of scenarios since its "ammo" is effectively gas or diesel and they're powerful enough to do the job.The US has treaties with them at a minimum to use their ports in war + they're extremely unhappy with how China has been acting for a while. The current situation has been a rather tense one for at least the last few years at a minimum. Same goes for other countries where the US has bases to operate out of in that region. If you're ignorant of this then you probably shouldn't be talking at all about it.
*“While Western military vessels have advanced air and missile-defence capabilities – using them to down Houthi missiles and UAVs – they are constrained by the number of interceptor missiles they can carry and the challenge of restocking depleted inventories,”
www.iiss.org/en/online-analysis/military-balance/2024/01/houthi-anti-ship-missile-systems-getting-better-all-the-time/
www.reuters.com/technology/china-sets-up-475-bln-state-fund-boost-semiconductor-industry-2024-05-27/
As the article notes this is their 3rd fund they've set up over the years. And most of the money is actually state funds. Its effectively a SWF at this point in everything but name. The majority of the 'private' partners are actually Chinese banks of some sort for instance that are putting in at least 5% a pop and 2 of the outright state owned banks/Chinese Fed are putting in 10%+. Their fabs are effectively state owned as well for the most part too.
If the US or West really wanted to properly kneecap Chinese foundry development they really should've started over 10yr ago IMO*.
As is the latest tariff will cause economic friction for them, and everyone else, but not really do much to stop them. I'd guess its really about making sure US and western efforts to build domestic fabs aren't undercut with cheap Chinese imported chips. Everyone is spending mega bucks on these things and they want to make sure they become financially self sufficient ASAP.
I don't know if I claimed that they were visionary. I was saying that profit doesn't necessarily drive their industry, if they choose a different strategy for the sake of a long-term goal.
We can point/counter-point as much as we want. No human is infallible or can know the future. In general, not relying on capitalism does have the stated benefit.
It's too bad that we don't have a strong sentiment for doing what is good for the benefit of everyone. Capitalism is awesome, but it also allows people to become greedy and allows society to slowly drift towards selfishness and evil.