temu and shein are cooked
Less cheap junk flowing into the US sounds like a win to me. Maybe clothes should be more expensive and better quality.
I already buy a lot of clothes at least partially made in OECD states. Even with that “partially” doing a lot of work and my avoiding paying extra for “fancy” brand names… I don’t think Americans earning closer to median household income are gonna be happy about paying the kind of prices I pay.
Now I need to pay 10x for a USB cable, a charger etc.
Monoprice has low cost cables.
Monoprice cables are made in China. They'll also cost 10x.
I'm not certain, but I suspect this'll work out better for Monoprice than it does for individuals.
I _think_ Monoprice will pay the couple of hundred dollars "per package" fees for the pallet or container full of cables they bring in, amortising that cost over thousands of items. They'll still get charged the 145% tariff though, but they'll probably cost something like 3x rather than 10x. (Until they work out that they no longer compete with individuals buying from AliExpress/Temu/Shein, or probably even with side hustle Fulfilment by Amazon micro-importers).
Also less affordable electronics
Tangent. I got into building hi-fi tube amplifiers some years back. Part of it was a kind of nostalgia for the days of Heath-Kit which I am only just old enough to remember the company's sunsetting years.
It was a fun few years deep-diving into the various amplifier topologies, buying NOS vacuum tubes on eBay, looking through electronics flea markets for parts. I made several amps, tried different tubes, topologies.... Eventually I settled on a small stereo amp and designed a PCB for it, created a small kit even.
Using a drill press in the garage, a table saw to cut aluminum sheet stock down, even learning to powder-coat parts in a toaster-oven I picked up from Walmart, I made increasingly nicer looking amps. With two large output transformers and an even large power transformer they were fairly heavy beasts.
Nonetheless, though I built them a decade or more ago, every one of the amplifiers I built are still in use today. The music I am listening to at this moment is coming from one. Another is down in my "lab". I have given several away to friends, co-workers in the past.
I guess the reason for the tangent was to say that I did indeed find that when you have (or make) a thing of real quality it can last … perhaps a life time?
And thinking again a little nostalgically, I like that too about electronics just up to the post-modern era: a new electronics purchase might have cost you a paycheck or two, but you got I think more mileage out of that device.
EDIT: come to think of it, the heavy iron transformers are from the U.S., the tubes NOS from U.S. WWII bombers. I didn't built them of course with tariffs in mind, but surprisingly they are not so cost-dependent on overseas suppliers.
And here's a photo of the finished amp (from when I once considered selling the kits): https://imgur.com/PBKOQMk
Thanks for sharing, that’s really cool and something I wish I had the time/skill/patience for. The amp looks great and love the name - might have to dust off the tools for a “Now and Then” model.
Even more important in creating a more closed loop system with less waste. Some Android phones are e-waste before they hit a year or two.
There is also an argument that we should have fewer electronics too…
I don't think so. There is an argument for -individuals- buying too much electronics and they should revisit that, but it's not anyone's business other those people. Tanking the economy and destroying lives "just becuz consumers" is a really really bad way to run the country. Just giving back and going back to horse and buggy while China eats your lunch is not a good thing, because soon you will be making "cheap trinkets" for them
Too bad that’s not the argument being made by people pushing the current policies, instead of the idea that this will magically lead to us having more and better things.
It is very interesting how if there was a genuine attempt at degrowth this is potentially a good start.
It sure is funny how the party that has spent 2 decades screaming at anyone they could that "climate change isn't real" and "the people saying we should output less carbon are REALLY just degrowth cultists and we can consume everything forever with no issues" are outright, willfully, destroying the American economy in such a way that average americans WILL have to consume less
the thing is that life is about freedom of choice, I didn't buy they cheap junk, I'm fairly normal. I might be the occasional hobby board off alibaba express a couple times a year. Choice is good, not bad.
Maybe the law should impose quality and environmental standards instead of tariffs. But no, that would hurt domestic businesses.
The market does what people want. Fast fashion is exactly what people want because fashion has always been changing fast and about the "new thing" and people like to be able to buy new stuff all the time.
Here you go: enjoy your $120 American jeans: https://originusa.com/collections/jeans (Oh look its on sale 20$ off...yay :/ )
The sale discount is the entire amount I was able to buy my non American jeans for. :/
I guess I can make due with one pair for the week...or wash them each day(oh wait thats gotten more expensive as well).
Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all. Especially every day. They also will last for years therefore buying 1-3 pairs a year means your wardrobe will have plenty.
Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities. Sending it to China is just awful for your country/region and kills local businesses.
Disclaimer: from Europe so I don't care about USA at all. It's still having the same effect here
> Maybe local production will get cheaper once more people start keeping their money in local communities.
Is the thinking here that increased scale would allow production to get cheaper? How would this account for the fact that production was scaled here, but was not cost-competitive when it was operating at scale? What's different now?
Let's say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25. There are people for who are ready to pay more for local products so the current production volume makes sense, but majority of people will go for cheaper option when given the chance so it doesn't make sense to scale up the production currently. If the import cost of the item goes above local production cost and there is still enough demand for the item, it can make sense to scale up that production even if you cannot compete with the China made things internationally.
Of course that assumes your own costs (like raw materials) do not increase at least on the same scale and that you can rely on the situation being long-term thing (i.e. will last years rather than weeks) as costs include your CapEx on things like new machines.
> say currently it costs $15 to make thing 1m units of X in China and $50 to make 10k of them in the USA. USA could be scaled to make 50k of them for $40 and 100k for $30. 1m could cost like $25.
So here we are assuming that we could get a 50% reduction in cost by scaling to 1m units of a thing. The problem with this logic is that many product categories currently made overseas were produced domestically at scale until relatively recently.
This assumption also appears to imply that the goods in question either have a very low labor input or are produced using automation that is not available to Chinese manufacturers.
Reframing my initial question, what advantages would a US manufacturer have today that they didn't have in e.g. 1990 that would allow them to manufacture for only 66% more than the same manufacturing in China?
> Proper jeans aren't really washed more than once a month or at all.
I've had a lot of people say this to me. I've known their policy on washing jeans without them ever having to tell me, though.
People become noseblind to their own stench. Unfortunately, it's not easy to ignore the stench of someone else wearing pants with a month of sweat and fecal bacteria soaked into them. I know lots of people also only wash their coats once a year, and trust me, being more resistant to stinking isn't the same as being completely immune to stinking.
Wash your clothes. The idea of not washing them is a meme and it's incredible how many people have fallen for it lately.
I don't know about you but it feels icky to me to wear dirty pants. I could probably get by wearing them two days in a row. If I have one paid of jeans, im washing them at least every other day. If I have 7 pairs of jeans im washing at least half of them once a week. I'd rather have 7 pairs of jeans. They last long enough for me(a few years). Maybe its just because I dont have to taken them to the laverie (as the french would say) but clean clothes just feel better.
> kills local businesses
The business-to-consumer businesses, which take the largest markup, employ the most people and pay the highest wages in the supply chain, have thrived under this system.
It's not the customers that demand products be made in China, it's these "local" businesses.
If the de minimus rule is in-fact suspended on May 2nd, yes. Hasn’t happened yet, so who knows.
Amazon and other US selling platforms are also in trouble, given how much of their income is from drop shippers.
Well, given how many of their products come from China, right? How many of the products on sale on Amazon are partly or entirely produced in China? Those will have 125% (145? How mush is it today?) import duty on them, unless they're electronics.
too little too late for Forever 21 and it's 350 locations which once employed 43,000 people at it's peak: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/forever-21-files-for-second-...
The temu/shein loophole should been closed ages ago.
I'm surprised the Chinese sellers are able to compete for fast fashion. Clothes are the one thing I don't really buy online because getting sizing right is already hard even when you're not dealing with Temu-style "well actually we said there's a +- 25 tolerance in the fine print and this is within tolerance" bullshit.
AliExpress is indispensable for small technical items. If they're available locally at all, shipping included they'd often cost 10-20x as much.
No idea about Shein, but I was shocked how easy/good Temu return policy was. My wife bought some rugs and some prints and they were not as described/pictured.
Took a minute in the app to generate a qr code, then I had it to the post shop the same day and they refunded within 3 days.
I wouldn't (personally) buy clothes to wear normally from them, but something like beach shoes or a poncho for a festival I'd maybe get there.
TIL Temu has a return policy. I thought the return policy was "throw it in the trash and be out the money (albeit 1/10th of what you would have paid in a regular store)".
It's not fast-fashion they are competing with — they invented ultra-fast-fashion. Their platforms (Shein and Temu) are fully geared towards allowing manufacturers to jump on board the latest hypes and trends and have a saleable product on there within a week or so, to sell for a few weeks until it is no longer trending.
You want a 'My tariffs did that' T-shirt? Temu.
https://www.temu.com/search_result.html?search_key=tariffs%2...
Local store chains can't match that velocity.
People are happy to just try stuff on at home then deal with returns or accept the loss if it doesn't fit or look good.
They tried closing the loophole a month ago. It was such a burden trying to track and collect tariffs on small shipments they gave up.
It is pretty crazy how worker unfriendly US trade policy has been for so long.
They need to get their priorities straight - stop directing trade policy towards tech companies employing 1000's of workers on $250,000 a year and start building factories employing 100's or people on 25c an hour.
> The temu/shein loophole should been closed ages ago.
Or the US should figure out how to get domestic shipping rates to be as cheap as the rates that Chinese shippers pay to ship to the US.
International shipping from China to the US is subsidized by USPS under the Universal Postal Union rules since China is classified as a developing country. Terminal dues to the US have been increasing over the last 5 years to compensate for this.
https://www.ecomcrew.com/why-china-post-and-usps-are-killing...
It's still crazy to me that we classify the second largest economy as a developing country. Especially when said "developing" country is trying to flex it's muscles over the world stage and attack its neighbors.
China can either remain a developing country subject to rules imposed by developed countries. Or it can join the developed countries and shape those rules. It can't do both.
That would probably require that they receive federal funding to subsidize postage rates, which is unfortunately not going to happen (especially not under DeJoy).
Yes, perhaps the government should subsidize (or allow states to subsidize) the fixed costs of mail, just as we subsidize the fixed costs of roads, so that our business can be competitive. Is this what China does domestically, or what the US does when we charge for international shipping? Point is, we should at least list all the ways that we can be more competitive, rather than cheering isolationism that makes us all worse off.
He resigned last month.
Ah, yeah, just in time to be replaced by another Trump appointee to similar or worse results.