Quote:First of all, I'm not a conservative.  

 

Secondly, you did say, "Still, a $100/unit tariff on ipads and iPhones would have production facilities in the US in months."   And I simply pointed out that that is not true.   The manufacturing advantages in China go way beyond the cost of each worker.   The Chinese have huge advantages in logistics and flexibility that the US will never be able to match, to the point that slapping a $100 import tariff on Ipads and Iphones will have no effect on where they are produced.  

 

And if, as you say, Apple will simply eat that $100 tariff, how can you say the tariff has worked to put more jobs in the US?  I thought that's what you were after.   All you will have accomplished is to levy a giant tax on Apple Corporation, whose stock is held in the 401k plans of all those middle class people you say you want to help. 

 

The level of tariff I'm talking about definitely would bring jobs over, and while Apple denies they would bring jobs over they're simply lying. They've literally sold 85 million iphones (not even bringing ipads or ipods into it) in the USA since the product debuted. If they had to pay $125 for each of those they sold in the USA (because they charge even more for iphones than they do for ipads) to the federal government that would be more than 10 billion dollars. That's not money they would pass up.

 

All of their talk of how they need China's factory flexibility is a red herring. If an item debuts in September or October because it takes longer to change factory layout won't change how many phones they sell and the marginal difference in cost per phone would be miniscule compared to paying billions of dollars in tariffs.

 

As for them eating the tariff, if they did that would be fine, too. The USA could use that money, and money from any other tech company that would rather pay an approximately-20%-of-retail tariff to help fund entrepreneurship programs here in the USA to bring more domestic corporations and production facilities into the fold to help make sure Apple has plenty of competition.

---