The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has released several new predictions about how electronics prices will change for Americans if US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed import tariffs are implemented.
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The association’s latest study examines two scenarios: a total global import tariff of 10% and an additional 60% on goods from China, and a total tariff of 20% and an additional 100% on goods from China. Previously, the CTA, which represents the $400 billion home and consumer technology industry, conducted a similar study and found that Trump’s proposed policies would raise the price of laptops and tablets in the United States by 46%.
Now the organization has conducted an analysis taking into account ten product categories: laptops, smartphones, Internet-connected devices, game consoles, computer accessories, monitors, desktop computers, TVs, lithium-ion batteries, speakers and headphones. The disappointing conclusion is that “even with alternative supply sources and possible new U.S. production, the proposed tariffs on these ten products would reduce the purchasing power of U.S. consumers by $90 billion to $143 billion annually. <..> If suppliers pass on all increased costs to end consumers, price increases will be significant. The biggest impact will be felt by laptop, tablet and smartphone buyers.”
In the first scenario, CTA calculations showed that prices for tablets and laptops in the US would increase by 45%, consoles would rise in price by 40%, monitors by 31%, and smartphones by 26%. But if Trump chooses a tougher tariff regime, tablets and laptops will become more expensive by 68%, consoles by 58%, monitors by 48%, smartphones by 40%. The US President-elect hopes that the introduction of additional duties on electronics produced in China will force companies to return factories to the US and produce products domestically. The authors of the study doubt that this will happen – it is more likely that production will move from China to other countries, where it is still cheaper to work than in the United States, but import duties are lower. Even if manufacturing returns to America, the electronics industry will still remain dependent on Chinese suppliers who have invested in making lithium-ion batteries, entry-level chips and other components for consumer electronics.
There also remains the question of retaliatory tariffs against American exporters: the rest of the world will obviously raise their own barriers against the United States. Canada is already preparing such measures. Mexico warned that the measures proposed by Trump would deprive the country of 400 thousand jobs, and that pickup trucks assembled in Mexico and sold in the United States would rise in price by at least $3,000. The elected president is still determined, and he proposed to compensate for the costs with tax deductions – in this case, prices will still go up.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
