blastdoor

It sounds like (maybe?) consumer electronics (or at least some) are going to fall under the 'semiconductor' tariff rate ,which is much lower than the 145% China rate. Consumer electronics is also a very big piece of what the US imports from China. 

So that amounts to a pretty big unilateral walk back on the tariff charged on Chinese imports. Will China also walk back some portion of their tariffs? 

Other salient info here: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/10/wayne-ma-the-information-apple-siri-fumble

taken altogether, this brings me to the conclusion that Cook needs to go. Apple needs a “product guy” in charge again.

radarthekat said:

Here’s something the MAGA crowd doesn’t seem to  know is coming.  This 90-day delay… they think countries will use this time to kiss the ring.  Yes, they will send their emissaries to Washington, but back home they will be working feverishly to cut trade deals and form alliances to reduce their dependence on America and find new sources of needed goods and new markets for theirs.  

#FartOfTheDeal

100% agree. Also, China sees what causes Trump to blink -- crashing stock markets and rising yields on the 10 year treasury. 

Trump has greatly weakened the US. We might be starting to see that in the 10 year yield and the dollar. 

We might also see it in a national security crisis. I'll say again -- Taiwan is in extreme danger now. I seriously doubt the US will be able to rally countries to break a blockade or defend Taiwan. I'm not even sure that the idiots running national security can competently lead an effort to break a blockade or defend Taiwan. 

All US assets are now much riskier than they were before November of 2024. And there's no quick/easy fix, because it's not just Trump -- it's that the US is a country that would elect Trump, twice. We have revealed ourselves to be far less stable than what was conventionally believed. We need serious systematic reforms that will greatly reduce the probability of another Trump-like president running amok. The best shot at such reform today is Dems taking over 60 seats in the senate (along with House + WH) and pushing through a deluge of reforms with the same speed that DOGE burned everything down. Or to use another analogy, it would need to be something like FDR's first 100 days. 

Dems should be working on a "Project 2029" so that they have their playbook ready to run. 

I read somewhere that Trump might be approaching a “Liz Truss” moment, but I’m not sure how that works in the US. There is no king to ask “are you still here? Oh dear, oh dear.”

perhaps it will be more like “et tu, Elon?”

entropys said:

Panic demand being brought forward.  An alternative approach would be to just keep existing phones for a longer upgrade cycle. Which has the added benefit of seeing how things pan out.

That’s what I’m doing. In general I’m going into hunker down mode. Cutting all inessential spending.