Trump Says Tim Cook Made 'Good Case' That Tariffs Would Put Apple at Disadvantage With Rivals Like Samsung

[Z400Racer37]

If you’re an absolutist, then you will find life is quite hard, anywhere in the world.
I mean if you’re on board with absolute free market, then you’re also in for slavery then. I mean free market, right? Why should the sale of humans be prohibited? You see why an absolutist idea makes no sense?

Certainly slavery is a loathsome practice, and is properly banned from society, but that is most certainly not a violation of free markets. "Free" market is not equivalent with "do whatever the hell I feel like" market. A free market is an environment in which rights violating actions (i.e. actions which implement an initiation of physical force) are abolished from human affairs by the government. Slavery is an abomination, and a clear violation of rights. Therefore, it is most certainly not a feature of a free market.

Any appeal to "non-absolutism" is a reflection of mixed, or cloudy concepts, which, in this case, is a misunderstanding of what "free" means.

China is not playing well because they are cheating left and right. They impose tariffs on many US exports, while circumvent US regulations by shipping their stuff from countries like Vietnam. Politics is an art trying to balance things out.

Politics has become an art of "balancing things out," but that's only because no-one really fully knows what to do (no absolutes), and therefore they try to strike a balance between what they perceive as the two (also non-absolute) endpoints on some random spectrum. Politics is properly the realm of absolutes, as is everything else in reality, but we'll only get there once people learn how to think clearly and in terms of principle.

China may be engaging in rights violating actions against its citizens by having unfair trade policies, but that does not mean out president has the right to violate our rights in retaliation. If they impose tariffs on US exports, that hurts both us and them, and the solution is not to make sure we also shoot ourselves in the feet to make sure we both get an even amount of trigger pulling.

Besides, regardless of any regulations China may or may not have on their markets, if I identify a value in purchasing a product from there, no-one else has the right to tell me I'm not allowed to buy it, or force me to pay a premium, just because they don't like the way that country is doing things. They have every right to complain about it, but they have no right to force my or anyone else's judgement.

There’s no absolute in this world. Good luck with your absolutist point of view.

There's absolutely no absolute in this world?

Every country functions like this. Personal connections mean everything.

That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't make it a free market.

The idea of tariffs is to help US manufacturers; not to hurt them.

The government has no business "helping" or "hurting" anyone in the marketplace. Like the policy or not, that is not a feature of a free market, or a Capitalist.

What it all means is that Trump is a person you can reason with unlike the way he is presented by the left-wing media like CNN, MSNBC, etc. We've just seen the meltdown that occurred with the CNN's top anchor Chris Cuomo. Had this happened with Trump, the media would be calling for an immediate impeachment hearing. However, when this happens to the top CNN talent, they simply dismiss it as something that is totally normal and stand behind their guy. This is an egregious demonstration of a double standard in the media. So, take all the criticism of the Trump administration that is coming out of the left-wing media with a grain of salt. Their coverage of the negative effects of the Trump administration policies, including the tariffs, are grossly exaggerated, and all the achievements of the Trump administration are constantly downplayed.

I don't watch the news -- I have no interest in $h!t flinging contests. My views are not rooted in what's on the news, or anyone else's opinion, but instead in facts. The fact is the President has no business going around, deciding which people we are or are not allowed to trade with. This is a free country, not a mechanism for him to enshrine his every whim into political action. These actions are not characteristic of a free market, and the fact that he pretends to be a free market capitalist while imposing controls wherever he feels like is a mockery of facts and reality.

To be clear...your faux angst is because you want the President to continue to pretend this giant economic disaster doesn't exist, and just let the corporate norm of taking advantage of slave labor while negatively impacting their own country continue.

My "faux angst" over violations of the principle of individual rights, the principle which made this country great, and the association of those rights violating actions with free market capitalism is absolutely real, just, and warranted. The casual attitude of large swaths of the Republican party towards principles, and individual rights in particular, and their association of whimsical authoritarian actions with concepts like "freedom" and "justice" are disturbing, especially since they're willing to compromise the principles which lay at the foundation of freedom, for the sake of issues which are so pathetically meaningless.

Everyone knows this needs to be dealt with, and everyone knows dealing with it is going to be painful and come at a price. Everyone also knows that the tariffs suck, but there is no other way to make anyone do anything about it other than hitting them where it hurts.

We're hitting ourselves where it hurts; we're the ones paying the tariffs. That's the whole reason why he's delaying them in this case. It's not like he's trying to save China's Christmas.

Besides, things that "everyone knows" are usually wrong, and that's certainly no different here.

I can't imagine anything more cowardly and boring than attacking the president over this long overdue necessity.

I can imagine plenty of things which are far more cowardly than standing on principle, regardless of what your leader tells you.

Any other action, for example, would be far more fitting for a coward.

 

[thefourthpope]

Trust me, the fact that you appear to not see Obama as a classless yahoo who was in way over his community organizing head says all I need to know about you as well.

“Classless” . . . Is this about his holding a coffee cup instead of saluting? That’s the usual anecdote.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

Hahaha wowwwwww they've really got your number, huh? First of all, the quality of those jobs is utter crap. Not to mention all the jobs he's shipping out of the country (look up Carrier air conditioning factory). The tax cuts have actually added more to the deficit and only serve the rich. Borders are the same as ever except for that wall you people keep clamoring on about that obviously isn't happening which is good

Of course you would claim that the quality of these jobs is utter crap. You hate the man so anything good coming from his presidency you are going to present it in a negative light.

Take this advice from a legal immigrant and resident of this great country that doesn’t have the right to vote yet, but if I did I would vote for Trump and the Republican Party, even if they place policies that might put my citizenship in danger.

You don’t want the US to become a socialist country. You people don’t know what socialism is, you never lived in those countries that we are migrating from so you only know what rich Hollywood celebrities and career politicians tell you.

There is a reason why so many people migrate to the US and fleeing their failed governments and failed socio economic systems. They just don’t work. They only produce a class of poor slaves that pay high taxes so the elite can live as Kings. Simple as that.

 

[Will do good]

I guess Tim has to use really small words and pictures to talk to Trump.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Forbes, eh? OK. Sure let's go with them then. LOL

Rather than cherry picking old data it's not hard to find the real time list...

https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#3ebe6cf43d78

It's even searchable so you can instantly find that one of those individuals is on the list and the other one isn't.

"lol" I guess?

 

[Glockworkorange]

Free market capitalist my @$$. The idea that Tim Cook needs to plead with he top elected official of his own government in the hopes that he'll protect his rights, when that's his only proper function as President is an abominable state for this country occupy. What a shameful "leader."

It's so funny when leftists start spouting conservative ideology when they don't like the big government result, or when they detest the person in the Oval Office.
[doublepost=1566241727][/doublepost]

You realize that recessions happen about once every 5–10 years and, with that having been said, we're now well overdue for one, right? Economies don’t expand indefinitely, and we’re already seeing this current expansion approach its ceiling.

Over the next several months, there are several major events/factors — the most important being Brexit and trade warring — which pose serious risks to already slowing economic growth across the globe. Both the 2Y–10Y and 3M–10Y yield curves have inverted, both common and reliable indicators that a recession is on the horizon, likely to occur within 6–18 months.

The economy’s pretty much on stilts at this point, held together with duct tape and bubblegum and credit. It won’t take much to kick off a recession — so again, kindly let me know how the “booming” economy is working out in a year or so.

I guess I should be surprised when people on the left root for recession to damage American because they hate the occupant of the White House.

This is the Bill Maher playbook.

You can see the sort of glee in the eyes and possible sexual arousal while discussing a recession. Anything to get ORANGE MAN BAD!

 

[jonblatho]

I guess I should be surprised when people on the left root for recession to damage American because they hate the occupant of the White House.

I'll address this for what I believe is the third time now:

I'm not rooting for a recession to occur. As a recent college graduate looking for work, the prospect likely should scare me more than most. There's a difference between acknowledging reality and hoping for it to happen.

 

[psingh01]

The tariffs are on *Americans* buying Chinese goods - only Americans. Samsung is not American, so they can use the same sources as Apple, but their government doesn't charge them. And we can buy Samsung phones tariff free because South Korea is not China.

The point was how come Samsung can manufacture outside of China and Apple can't? The tariffs aren't on American companies. They are on imports to America from Chinese made products regardless of whether the company is American or not.

If Samsung can avoid the tariffs by manufacturing elsewhere then so can Apple. The reasoning has long been that the supply chains are in China. It seems to not be the case for Samsung.

 

[Scottsdale]

I was surprised at all the comments from people who seem to not understand how tariffs work. So here's a more concrete example. (And for those who do understand, forgive me):

Say the government decides (as it has in the past), that it's tired of Americans buying foreign cars. There's two ways it could bribe people financially to change their behavior:

1) The carrot: If you buy a Corvette, you can deduct the entire price from your taxable income. Better yet, you can get a full tax credit for your Corvette - literally sending your Federal tax dollars to Chevrolet instead of the government. Result: many more people will buy Corvettes*, Chevrolet will hugely prosper, those Americans who do buy Corvettes will have an ultra cheap car and have more money to spend, the economy goes up. Those that love BMWs can still buy them as before - they just won't see a positive increase in their income.

2) The stick: If you buy a BMW 3 series*, you will be charged an a $20,000 penalty. (The Tariff). The result? Some Americans may switch to buying a Corvette. Chevrolet may see some boost. Some Americans will pay super high prices for BMW 3-series cars. Many Americans will no longer be able to afford a BMW and will just buy used or hold on to their cars longer. BMW may lose a little business, and Chevrolet may gain a little business, but Americans lose cash, and the economy suffers.

BUT: the intended benefits of Tariffs (to promote domestic industry) only work when there IS a domestic alternative. Imagine this same scenario, but pretend the US HAS NO CAR COMPANIES. So the government just says "buy a foreign car, pay a $20,000 penalty." This costs foreign car companies some sales, as before, but it mainly just makes Americans poorer, because in this example there's no local car they can buy to avoid the penalty. It's now simply a tax on new cars - making them unaffordable for most people. And the economy goes down, or the quality of life measured in the state of the car you drive, goes down.

This was an example from the consumer side of things, but it's the same scenario from the seller side of things - you're just applying the penalty to the businesses, who have to pass it on to the consumer. In this example, "Any car dealership that sells a foreign car must pay a $20,000 penalty for every car sold." It doesn't make a big difference where in the chain it happens, because everyone will try to pay part of the tariff to try to reduce business losses.

This was the big flaw in the Brexit argument: People who were pro-Brexit said "Europe is a huge trading partner who can't afford to lose us." But what they overlooked was that while England got a huge fraction of its goods from Europe, Europe only got a small fraction of its goods from England. So whatever hurt that trade hurt England far worse than Europe. It's a Pyrrhic victory - we'll nuke ourselves to cause you a little inconvenience.

* I just picked Corvettes and BMW 3 series as classic proxies for American and Foreign cars. I think they're both cool - no insults intended.

But you sound like a liberal politician. Your way us to be paid for and is a loss to the government. Tariffs just bring cash in... no paying for another government sponsored program. This is capitalism. The sad thing is all these jobs were shipped to Communist China to build an empire, military and infrastructure that will one day supersede anything the US has.

The middle class is gone. Just wealthy executives and the rest of people. Look, companies are making far more money than ever. All for the wealthiest who own 80% of the debt and equities of those companies and the executives themselves. The workers are making less than ever in comparison to the wealth brought in by these companies.

Capitalism is great, and tariffs are the only thing that can at least reverse course on all the wealth being transferred to China and other regimes around the World. If liberals want the middle class so bad, they would play the long game and stop the ridiculousness now. Liberal politicians line their pockets with your money, but they play a good game as most don’t realize it. They believe everything these career politicians tell them. Absurd.

 

[tigres]

Amen. I don’t like how pedantic Trump acts and his ego is nauseating, but the fact remains, he is taking on some of the biggest issues that our better speaking, more polished career politicians we just love to vote for wouldn’t or didn’t have the backbone to deal with. It’s as if anti-Trumpers think making it more difficult for people to come here illegally is racist (somehow?) and punishing China, tough as it may for us in the interim, is bad. The fact Trump has had to be then one to deal with this is sad. You hear pathetic political candidates talk about all these issues and what do they do, nothing. Trump has been talking about China ripping us off since the early 1980s, and now that he is in a position to do something he is. Like it or not.
[doublepost=1566237216][/doublepost]
Trust me, the fact that you appear to not see Obama as a classless yahoo who was in way over his community organizing head says all I need to know about you as well.

One last thought for you as well if I may:

Next November the whiners will continue a new levels when Trump is RE Elected.
It will happen, nobody can stop it and the left knows.

I have yet to hear on this BS thread anything of substance that Trump has not done. Hell, he just went to North Korea last month- he gets nothing but sh*t about it. He could hand out his own hundred dollar bills on PA ave and CNN would call their lawyers to find out how to spin it negatively. He may be different with his delivery, and say wonky things- but he has done more in 2.5 years that I can recall any sitting president since Regan.

He has my vote, proud to say it.

 

[psingh01]

But you sound like a liberal politician. Your way us to be paid for and is a loss to the government. Tariffs just bring cash in... no paying for another government sponsored program. This is capitalism. The sad thing is all these jobs were shipped to Communist China to build an empire, military and infrastructure that will one day supersede anything the US has.

The middle class is gone. Just wealthy executives and the rest of people. Look, companies are making far more money than ever. All for the wealthiest who own 80% of the debt and equities of those companies and the executives themselves. The workers are making less than ever in comparison to the wealth brought in by these companies.

Capitalism is great, and tariffs are the only thing that can at least reverse course on all the wealth being transferred to China and other regimes around the World. If liberals want the middle class so bad, they would play the long game and stop the ridiculousness now. Liberal politicians line their pockets with your money, but they play a good game as most don’t realize it. They believe everything these career politicians tell them. Absurd.

It is remarkable how for decades tariffs were derided by the right wing as a bad liberal policy. "Tariffs just don't work" was often repeated. Low corporate taxes and free trade agreements were what was pushed. It is only because Trump is a republican that other republicans have stopped publicly going against tariffs (they did indeed try to stop them when he first proposed them, but are now mostly silent). NAFTA in fact was passed with more republican support than democrat, but since Trump is against it the party follows.

Now saying tariffs are bad is a "liberal" thing and tariffs are good is a "conservative" thing lol.

It just goes to show that many people don't have core beliefs. They just pick a side and go with whatever that side is saying even if it is the polar opposite of what they were saying yesterday.

 

[altecXP]

Today I learned that liberals NOW care about the deficit.

Sounds like you've been ignorant to liberal policy then. Reading non-republican bias media will help that.

 

[Fozziebear71]

Sounds like you've been ignorant to liberal policy then. Reading non-republican bias media will help that.

Today I also learned some people don’t understand sarcasm.

 

[Z400Racer37]

It's so funny when leftists start spouting conservative ideology when they don't like the big government result, or when they detest the person in the Oval Office.

You find me the leftists (or the conservatives for that matter) who thinks the only proper purpose of government is the protection of the individual rights of its citizens, then maybe I'll start taking your comments seriously.

 

[BaltimoreMediaBlog]

All the hate & criticism here and yet Apple is the most successful it's ever been and America has the best economy since the 1950s, lowest employment in history for minorities, highest wage growth in decades! And I know someone will bring this up, but crime in America is also the lowest in decades as well as murders despite the mass shootings.
It's pretty rich when people trash and protest the very best times of their lives just because the President personally is an *****. Aren't there much better things to do? My personal belief is that the media gins up hate and division itself simply for profit, rather than actual journalistic news value.

Now as for the rest of the world, well you made your own beds, but I understand the intense jealousy and hatred of how competitive Trump is in world trade. But so far, Trump has been very kind to Apple even though the media keeps predicting gloom and doom. Media says Trump is supposed to hate gays so why is he so nice to Tim Cook???

And finally, Trump is taking no salary as President, nor does he have stock options. Tim Cook?

 

[HVDynamo]

So does Samsung manufacture elsewhere? Why can they do it and Apple can’t?

Spooling up manufacturing on the scale Apple needs somewhere else is not a trivial or cheap task.

 

[dk001]

Spooling up manufacturing on the scale Apple needs somewhere else is not a trivial or cheap task.

Especially they way Apple sets up their supply chains.

 

[Tech198]

Suck it up Apple..

This would be front page news now.. Apple will overblow this how glad they are, while Tim may do a song and dance..

 

[tooltalk]

Be a Korean company?

So far as manufacturing, Korea was "China" before China became "China" (and for what it's worth, these days Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. are the new "Chinas".) But - the big difference between Korea and China is that Korea was never open to foreign manufacturers the way China is. So Samsung could do it in Korea, being a Korean company, but Apple could not.

Keep in mind that Foxconn is *not* Chinese - they are from Taiwan.

?? why this nonsense? South Korea was never in foreign manufacturer's or investors interest because their domestic market was thought to be too small and labor pool too unskilled (and technically the North and South were still at war until a few years ago) -- what they have now is developed more or less on their own. Japan on the other hand had a significantly larger market and, in its heydays, required foreign companies to force tech transfer and/or domestic partnership, a policy model copied by China decades later. China is hardly open or free in that sense -- at least not in the way South Korea is today -- and that's part of what Trump is addressing in his trade war.

So does Samsung manufacture elsewhere? Why can they do it and Apple can’t?

Now as for the original poster's question, Samsung's been steadily migrating out of China since early 2010's to a country previously known for textile exports, building infrastructure and supply-chain along the way. Samsung now employs 160K Vietnamese with 200+ domestic, foreign suppliers. Most of their smartphones are now made in Vietnam and Samsung's products account for nearly 25% of Vietnam overall export (their #1 export). No smartphones are made in South Korea AFAIK -- I believe LG was the last to build them in SK and they recently announced that they are all moving it oversea (also to Vietnam).. Also as others noted earlier, Samsung has last few remaining smartphone factories in China to supply local market, but Samsung's market share in China is now almost 0%, so those won't last long.

Apple on the other hand entirely relies on Taiwanese/Chinese Foxconn and other contract manufacturing companies with little or no business experience, success outside China. We already heard a lot about Foxconn's botched smartphone operation in Brazil and fairly limited operation in India. They also had small supply shops in Vietnam until they got booted out during Sino-Vietnam conflict over the South China Sea brouahaha (ie, territorial dispute). Foxconn's LCD plant in WISC, again after much fanfare, isn't going anywhere either.

So there goes Apple's problem.

 

[itsmemuffins]

Of course you would claim that the quality of these jobs is utter crap. You hate the man so anything good coming from his presidency you are going to present it in a negative light.

Take this advice from a legal immigrant and resident of this great country that doesn’t have the right to vote yet, but if I did I would vote for Trump and the Republican Party, even if they place policies that might put my citizenship in danger.

You don’t want the US to become a socialist country. You people don’t know what socialism is, you never lived in those countries that we are migrating from so you only know what rich Hollywood celebrities and career politicians tell you.

There is a reason why so many people migrate to the US and fleeing their failed governments and failed socio economic systems. They just don’t work. They only produce a class of poor slaves that pay high taxes so the elite can live as Kings. Simple as that.

You just described California

 

[sirozha]

I don't watch the news -- I have no interest in $h!t flinging contests. My views are not rooted in what's on the news, or anyone else's opinion, but instead in facts. The fact is the President has no business going around, deciding which people we are or are not allowed to trade with. This is a free country, not a mechanism for him to enshrine his every whim into political action. These actions are not characteristic of a free market, and the fact that he pretends to be a free market capitalist while imposing controls wherever he feels like is a mockery of facts and reality.

If you believe in a completely unregulated free market, you must be smoking something really strong. Completely unregulated free market doesn't exist anywhere and has never existed.

 

[vladi]

Yet we have a booming economy. More jobs, low unemployment, and were finally standing up to a country that commits humanitarian atrocities, steals $300b in intellectual property, and cheats America for jobs.


China has stolen IP from Tesla, this makes Tesla less competitive as Xpeng can undercut Tesla, as they didn’t have to invest millions in R&D, they just stole the source code.

China almost successfully stole IP from Apple

1 in 5 corporations have had some form of IP theft from China in last year.

That's the risk you take when you employ people of foreign origin in order to save money on labor. I could be wrong maybe that person with Chinese citizenship is the super genius Tesla was looking for but sure as hell he did work for less money than US born super genius have asked for.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

You just described California

I know, right? Makes you wonder how moderate liberals see the results of socialism applied in California like high taxation, homeless epidemic, feces and urine in major public streets etc and be totally OK with it.

Like, I can understand the far left deranged people wanting more of this sh**hole inner cities condition, but the everyday, working class liberals? How can they be ok with that and keep voting for the same liberal policies?
Makes no sense to me.

 

[GuruZac]

Well let's see: one of them has a family he cares about very much and genuinely just wants to move the human race forward, while the other bangs porn stars, WANTS to bang his own daughter, gives props to white supremacists, refuses to do anything about the environment (oh except for rolling back protections of endangered species), and the list goes on and on.

Like how tf can you even compare these two? Ohhhh that's right, Obama was black. So Trump can get away with anything by default. Man talk about privilege, eh?

Why do you people always bring up race as a reason to not like Obama or his policies? There are actual reasons that have nothing to do with race, sexual orientation, religion, etc to disagree with someone. I know that must be tough to comprehend. The guy was a fraud, a phony, and a mediocre student at best who read and studied from radical political racist personality types. He got into politics, accomplished jack **** as a senator, gave a key note speech in 2004 and was suddenly propelled to superstardom for the Democrats and falsely promised to be the savior of America. It was borderline cult like the way the media and people adored the guy. That’s the story of Obama. Nothing extraordinary except his recklessness for 8 years. I suppose the truth of that somehow makes me a racist? I’m a libertarian who is completely sick of phony politicians and far left progressiveness that somehow thinks I should feel ashamed for being born a white male in America. I have no white privilege and no guilt. I’m no better than anyone of color and because I disagree with a president of color that does not make me racist.

 

[sbarton]

It is remarkable how for decades tariffs were derided by the right wing as a bad liberal policy. "Tariffs just don't work" was often repeated. Low corporate taxes and free trade agreements were what was pushed. It is only because Trump is a republican that other republicans have stopped publicly going against tariffs (they did indeed try to stop them when he first proposed them, but are now mostly silent). NAFTA in fact was passed with more republican support than democrat, but since Trump is against it the party follows.

Now saying tariffs are bad is a "liberal" thing and tariffs are good is a "conservative" thing lol.

It just goes to show that many people don't have core beliefs. They just pick a side and go with whatever that side is saying even if it is the polar opposite of what they were saying yesterday.

No it just goes to show you that some can not grasp or simply will not acknowledge that tariffs in this case are being used ultimately to open a market versus balancing one.