Tariffs imposed on Chinese goods slashed to 30%

[captainjp]

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-china-reach-deal-slash-tariffs-officials-say-2025-05-12/

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[NY_Rob]

Well, not to steal anyone's thunder, but we all knew that was coming.

USA lowers tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%
China lowers tariffs on American goods to 10%

 

[captainjp]

Well, not to steal anyone's thunder, but we all knew that was coming.

USA lowers tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%
China lowers tariffs on American goods to 10%

Sure, but there are 20k TEU ships that have had their goods tariffed at the inflated rate. Also, the market wasn’t so sure this was coming.

 

[NY_Rob]

...there are 20k TEU ships that have had their goods tariffed at the inflated rate.

That certainly is an interesting situation for the merchants here. Do they absorb that temporary cost spike or do they temporarily increase their prices, or do they just raise their prices forever acting like the tariffs never dropped back down? And, it's only a 90 day pause on the sky-high tariffs during trade negotiations correct?

I remember several years back (long before Covid) when there was a short term baking flower shortage. Our local bagel shop raised prices from (IIRC) $0.75 to $1.25. When the shortage was over and flower prices returned to near before shortage prices, he never lowered his prices back down. He's now at $1.75/bagel.

 

[SSteveEV]

Also for the ones that ship from China instead of importing in bulk this is still going to be a pain point since the de minimis $800 exemption is kaput.
30% is a lot greater than 0%. (but much less than the war rate of 145%)

 

[NY_Rob]

^ I know there were working loopholes still in place for imports even with the new tariffs and the discontinuation of the de minimis exemption...

I placed an order and paid in full for the new Elegoo Centauri Carbon 3D printer back in Feb before the tariff stuff started. There's a big backlog on that printer and mine is scheduled to ship sometime in mid to late June. Several people emailed Elegoo asking if they would honor our order pricing from Feb even with the 145% tariff in place. Elegoo responded officially that they would not be passing the tariff increases to customers because Elegoo ships products from overseas to their warehouse here, then the USA warehouse sells it to the USA customer so the product isn't being "sold" from an overseas entity to a USA customer, it's being shipped as inter-company materials from their overseas warehouse to their USA warehouse. In this case, they could claim the wholesale cost of the units are $10 each even though they retail for $300 each which would have a very minor tariff hit even at 145%.

 

[mkg3]

...now Canada and Mexico, along with EU have higher tariffs than China.

Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate...

 

[lefkonj]

Nothing like fixing the problem you created, what a terrible thing this has been and total waste of people's time and money.

 

[VandalSibs]

Nothing like fixing the problem you created, what a terrible thing this has been and total waste of people's time and money.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[Rivdog]

That certainly is an interesting situation for the merchants here. Do they absorb that temporary cost spike or do they temporarily increase their prices, or do they just raise their prices forever acting like the tariffs never dropped back down? And, it's only a 90 day pause on the sky-high tariffs during trade negotiations correct?

I remember several years back (long before Covid) when there was a short term baking flower shortage. Our local bagel shop raised prices from (IIRC) $0.75 to $1.25 and when the shortage was over he never lowered his prices back down. He's now at $1.75/bagel.

Exactly. It’s called the “anchor” effect and once people get used to the new normal, there’s usually no viable reason to lower prices again.

 

[captainjp]

Point being, Rivian will not suffer as much pain as originally anticipated.

 

[CANCERDOC]

Point being, Rivian will not suffer as much pain as originally anticipated.

Automotive parts were never included in the 145% tariff. There was a separate 25% auto parts Tariff that remains in effect. So nothing has really changed in regards to how it will affect Rivian based on the recent lowering of trade tariffs.

 

[captainjp]

Electronics and rare earths

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Most of my suppliers have raised prices. It will be interesting to see how that’s handled.

 

[Zoidz]

Nothing like fixing the problem you created, what a terrible thing this has been and total waste of people's time and money.

Yup, and it has put some US companies out of business due to the uncertaintly. It has affected our engineering business because our clients have deferred projects due to the uncertainty. It has caused lost wages and business revenue that cannot be replaced.

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