this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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I'm adjacent to the industry. This is dumb but I understand the reasoning. We're getting left behind in the electronics world. Nobody is creating hardware startups because every few months there's a viral blog post with a "hardware is hard" title on HN and none of the VC assholes want to fund anything but web based surveillance capitalism ad tech because it's a surefire way to make money. Even if you do get funded and you're US based you're absolutely doing all your manufacturing in China if you're remotely consumer facing (b2big-b has different rules). That means Chinese companies get all the benefits of all the labor from your highly trained engineers when they get the design files. If you try to build anything at volume in the US you have strikingly few options for boards and parts. Everything is whole number multiples of fucking PCBway and half the time it's lower quality unless you're paying aero-defense prices which is the only business anyone wants.
We let almost all manufacturing jobs go overseas just to cut labor costs and now we're suffering the consequences and our government completely incapable of doing what's necessary to bring that manufacturing capability back to the US. At this point basic Keynesians economic policy is tantamount to heresy for anyone but the far left. Its like we've adopted the economic policies we forced on third world nations, and found ourselves with a third world economy.
Being able to produce cheap drones as good as DJIs is far more important for national security than whatever espionage risk they pose. Cheap, easy to use, drones like the dji phantom are omnipresent in current wars. Banning them prevents us from learning via competition or basic reverse engineering.
Foucault's boomerang at work, just like US counter insurgency tactics now being employed by US police.
People shit on China all the goddamn time here but they've done a prolific job becoming the tech and manufacturing leader in a handful of decades.
Blame it on tech espionage if you want but there's a reason the US is deadset on targeting Chinese imports, and it's hardly for any of the security reasons they might be tempted to claim it to be. The US is about to be left behind and it's noones fault but our own.
Tech espionage is a pretty big problem though, not something anyone should hand-wave away as irrelevant.
Maybe in a particular light, but I'm personally of the opinion that intellectual property and patent law is antithetical to good social policy... so idk. Ideally we'd all benefit from the knowledge and ingenuity of all mankind but in a capitalist economic world-view there's no place for egalitarianism so....
If they can take the same tech and make it better/produce it cheaper then I think that's great, go nuts.
But that's obviously just me.
But why do we need to build stuff here? If it's cheaper elsewhere, let them build it and we'll do the higher paying work.
I guess there are national security concerns, but that sounds like we just need to make more friends and fewer enemies, as well as have redundancy in our supply chain (i.e. invest in other inexpensive labor markets, like LATAM, Africa, and India). The issue isn't that the US isn't making it, it's that China is making most of it. Diversify and the problem mostly goes away.
Because it leaves the industry vulnerable in case China decides to start withholding sales to the US. Especially if they invade Taiwan and trigger a chain reaction of treaties that launches into a huge US vs China slugging match. One which China would likely lose painfully to, but would inflict crippling damage to our military. Anything coming out of China will be stopped for as long as the war goes on, and then even longer depending on how much of what I'm China actually got destroyed.
That's what diversity in supply is for. If we're at war with China, we can probably still ship stuff in from LATAM and Africa.
We don't need to make stuff in the US to be secure, we just need to not rely on one country.
And that's why only Chinese stuff is banned, not all ex-US drones / electric cars.
China only has themselves to blame. They intentionally break WTO rules regarding unfair subsidies for their domestic companies. Plus they steal technology and ideas from every company manufacturing there. It doesn't matter for toasters or t-shirts, but high tech stuff is more important.
No other country does this, especially not with government support.
That's what tariffs are for. If a country is doing unfair pricing, force the pricing up to account for their subsidies. They can shoot themselves in the foot if they want.
If we can prove they steal trade secrets, we should sue them and block business with them until they pay or prove innocence. But just blocking products isn't the way, we need clear rules for when and how we do such things.
Retaliatory tariffs are not really allowed by the WTO. They are really destructive for trade and just create scenarios where a third country is used to bypass the tariffs.
China has been proven to steal technology for years, it's just that the benefits of manufacturing there outweigh the costs on an individual company level. No one company can "sue China" as you suggest. They're too big and can just ban that country from manufacturing anything there. So most companies put up with it.
Your comment actually illuminates the need for US government action. Since no particular company is actually hurting China, they can't be individually retaliated against by the Chinese government.
I'm not a fan of retaliatory tariffs, I'm a fan of corrective tariffs. The tariffs should be calculated from transparent facts, or at least good estimates. And they need to be consistent regardless of origin country. If we tariff Chinese EVs and drones due to being subsidized, we should also tariff AirBus airplanes for the same reason.
Tariffs are a problem when they target a country as a punitive measure, I think they can be effective when they correct unfairness in the market. I'm a fan of carbon tariffs, for example, where estimates of carbon emissions are used to calculate a tariff on an imported good so local products with higher regulatory expectations are competing on an even field. Maybe high income areas compete with low labor cost through automation and better QC, but they shouldn't need to compete with subsidies.
The country that makes ALL your shit has nothing to fear in a trade war. Unless you want to forgo ALL your shit?
Who would have thought that sending all those jobs overseas to increase company profits and depress wages would have a downside?
Stealing is the norm for every developed nation. They didn't just spin out of nowhere and became a super-power. Heard anything about hiring literal Nazis for space program? Does that count as unethical or stealing for you?
No?
I mean Nazis are bad, right? They were supposed to pay for what they did. But not these ones, these were the "good ones", so it's fine?
What about tech and knowledge stolen from colonial eras? Too old? it was the norm, not relevant anymore, it's okay when we did it or any other bs reason you come up with. However, doing the same now is unethical because the colonials created the "WTO" to protect their interests, but others arent playing your game, you're losing, and it's just not fair?
It's fine when you steal tech and talent (even if they were helped cause genocide) and US isn't shy supporting Israel do genocide again.
But as soon as other country uses what's made made available to them, use spies, and steals, It's unethical. The IPs that few countries arbitrarily created after looting through the whole world? How fucking convenient, eh?
Suck it!
I don't particularly like China but it's hilarious to think they'd be western puppet and do as they were told forever. Every other nation would do the same if roles were reversed.
Welcome to Marx 101.
"Property is theft"
It's already happening. Alot of manufacturing has moved from China to India already.
And that's a positive development. The same is happening in Mexico as well, and hopefully more countries step up as well.
Not wrong, but the issue is complex. Drones are very obviously one of the bullets in any upcoming conflict. It's not really about spying and phoning home, it's that it would be insane to try to tell China "hey, don't invade other countries mkay?" And then say "oh also we need ammo to stop you but we don't have the ability to make brass cases or gunpowder anymore, can you send us some".
Now, while we "can", to some extent, manufacture components and complete systems, the thing about a war is that it's basically a wizard duel but with money hoses. You can't win if the Chinese are producing slaughter bots for $500 ea and the US equivalent is $100,000 (literally). Congress is praying that this will light a fire under US and more friendly foreign manufacturing supply chains to invest more because they might have a chance of breaking into a lucrative market. That said, it probably just paves the way for a two tiered market where China makes their slaughter bots for $500 and the US makes them for $50,000 but all the civil use cases get caught in the cross fire for the short to mid term...so everyone still loses, just harder.
Considering recent history, you'd better say that to US more, don't you think? or is it that your country is free to invade other countries but others doing the same is where you start considering human rights?
Talk about hypocrisy. fuckin hell, read a history book.
Everybody Sucks Here
China has a bunch of the world by the balls thanks to the world using Chinese manufacturing for everything from chips to medication. That alone is a national security problem. Sure, it maintains some stability due to economic ties, but the flip side is that we can only exert so much pressure on China before it will bite us in the ass, and we’re fucked if all-out war started and we got cut off.
Sure, and that's why we should diversify to other countries, not why we should bring manufacturing back to US soil.
Honestly. This is why fair trade cert or taa compliant or just know trusted country is ok with me when I buy things.
I just don't want to be complict in known slavery. I don't want to support oppressive regimes. Etc, etc, etc.
There is no ethical consumption while living a capitalist way of life.
Without a foundation, you have no foundation.
Effectively, China has been acquiring a monopoly on manufacturing, which is an absolute necessity for modern life. We have been acquiring the higher-paid, but less numerous and less critical industries.
Sure, but it doesn't need to happen here. If we get into a WW3 situation, we need to be able to protect our supply lines, and that can happen with friendly countries. We're unlikely to get into a situation where our navy is outmatched, so I don't think it's totally urgent to bring production back here.
That said, we do have a lot of critical manufacturing capacity. Intel has chip fabs, we produce lots of oil, we build cars, etc. We import a lot more than we used to, but we could probably make it through a major war with only domestic production, provided it doesn't drag on too long until we can reestablish supply lines.
I'll only get worried when China catches up in tech. That's certainly happening faster than I'd like, but I don't think China is ready to compete head to head on tech just yet. If they're at parity, that's when we need to worry about domestic production. Ideally we can improve diplomatic ties by then.