The stupid iPhone tariff

Chris Keall writes at NZ Herald:

US President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he might slap a 10 per cent tariff on iPhones and other Apple gear imported from China.

Given that earlier GM today announced it was closing four factories in the US, at the cost of 14,800 autoworkers’ jobs – in part because of Trump’s steel tariffs – it’s hard to regard the president as much of an economic guru.

Trump is learning the hard way that tariffs hurt businesses rather than help them.

As with any Trump tariff (or tax, to be blunt), US consumers will pay the price, not China. Specifically, Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max would cost Americans US$200 ($295.18) more.

Americans will pay more for iPhones than people in other countries.

Apple does employ a lot of Americans (47,000 directly and around 300,000 including US-based partners). It’s just that they’re in design and marketing and other service-economy roles, as you would expect in 2018.

The US jobs are in high tech areas rather than machine line assembly.