"You get a tariff, you get a tariff, everybody gets a tariff!" - Official Trump Taxes® Thread | 05/12 : US and China slash tariffs to 30 and 10
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Them bond yields ain't coming down.
Trump can lie about it, but he is going to have to beg for a ric flair parlay at this stage or things are fukked.
Opinion | You Should Think About Replacing Your iPhone — Now
You will probably have to pay a lot more for your next iPhone. That’s bad news for Apple, for our markets and for our economy.
You Should Think About Replacing Your iPhone — Now
Summarize
April 9, 2025
A woman’s hand, her fingernails painted red, holding an iPhone with a bright yellow cover.
Lucia Buricelli for The New York Times
By Patrick McGee
Mr. McGee is the author of the forthcoming “Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company.”
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Will your next iPhone cost $2,000? More? The answer to that question — and the future of America’s wealthiest company and our imperiled financial markets — rests on one man with a very tricky task.
Steve Jobs might have been the visionary who made touch-screen phones a reality, but it was the operational genius and savvy statesmanship of Tim Cook, his low-key successor, that sent Apple’s revenues and its stock price into the stratosphere. His triumph in fending off Donald Trump’s first-term threats was not without cost, however: By flattering Mr. Trump with attention while making little to no changes to Apple’s China ties, Mr. Cook played the president for the fool.
Now Mr. Trump is back in the White House, and he has slapped China with tariffs so high that they present a major threat to Apple’s hammerlock on the smartphone market. It’s clearly going to be harder for Mr. Cook to pull off the same trick. If he fails — and most bet he will — it could be a huge blow to his company, to the stock market and to our broader economy.
Let’s start with a sense of the stakes. Apple has largely been the world’s most valuable company since 2011, and until Mr. Trump’s tariff threats, it was worth around 8 percent of the entire S&P 500. If your retirement is invested in index funds, Apple is your single biggest investment. It’s so enormous that merely issuing a quarterly profit warning, as the company did in early 2019, rattled global financial markets.
Then let’s turn to the fact that moving production to the United States — the stated goal of Mr. Trump’s extreme tariff regime — is almost impossible for Apple. China is home to roughly 90 percent of Apple’s global production, and it’s the only country where Apple has made such extraordinary investments in people, machinery and processes over a quarter-century.
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Analysts at the firm Wedbush estimated that a domestically built iPhone would cost more than triple its current price tag, which would mean about $3,500. Worse, America simply lacks the manufacturing expertise, the competitive industrial clusters and even the population density required to make Apple products en masse.
Many Apple suppliers are heavily reliant on China’s low-paid workers who migrate to cities for seasonal work, a number estimated at 300 million to 500 million adults, which even at its lower extent is nearly equivalent to every man, woman and child in the United States. In the busy holiday season, these workers are critical to Apple’s ability to ship one million iPhones per day, with each unit comprising roughly 1,000 components. Trying to move all manufacturing out of China would most likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
So in 2016, when Mr. Trump was urging his supporters to boycott Apple products and threatening huge China tariffs, little wonder that Mr. Cook, a quiet Democrat and a strong supporter of L.G.B.T.Q. rights and diversity initiatives, went on a charm offensive. He made a point of calling Mr. Trump and visiting frequently. The next year, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Cook vowed to build “three big plants, beautiful plants” in America.
The flattery worked, with Apple gaining broad exemptions from Mr. Trump’s tariffs. But Apple built zero plants in the United States. Its chief executive simply ran out the clock on Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Since then, Apple has only grown closer to the Middle Kingdom, winning over Chinese officials by helping Chinese companies mimic, and then oust, rival multinationals that were responsible for building China’s tech manufacturing dominance over the past decade, my reporting has shown. Apple’s annual reports show the number of Chinese vendors in its top-supplier list more than tripled, to 52, from 2012 to 2023, displacing their American and Taiwanese rivals.
Nic Coury/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Cook donated $1 million to and attended Mr. Trump’s 2025 inauguration. And a few weeks later Apple pledged to “spend and invest” $500 billion to expand “support for American manufacturing” during the president’s second term. Mr. Trump boasted that the investment reflected his “America First” agenda.
That promise alone won’t be enough to save Apple. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers must realize that Apple’s promise may be nonsense. There’s little evidence the company will spend anywhere near $500 billion; the announcement mentioned just four new initiatives whose total investment is unlikely to be even one-tenth that amount. Unless the math misleadingly includes buybacks and dividends, which have nothing to do with American manufacturing, or unless further projects are really planned, the pledge, like the one Mr. Cook made in Mr. Trump’s first term, is hot air.
And this time, Mr. Trump’s tariffs are far more onerous. Set to take effect on Wednesday, they are the biggest threat to Apple’s business since Mr. Jobs returned to save the company from near bankruptcy in 1997. Analysts from Rosenblatt Securities estimated they could diminish Apple’s annual profits by $40 billion. Not only did Mr. Trump say last week that he would impose a steep 54 percent tariff on China (including earlier increases); he also included at least 90 other countries, effectively short-circuiting Apple’s efforts to reroute products through Vietnam (tariffs: 46 percent) or India (27 percent). In responding with tariffs of its own, China shows no sign of backing down from a fight. Nor does Mr. Trump, who is pushing ahead with an additional 50 percent tariff first threatened on Monday.
Apple is stuck, and there is no obvious way out. Even if it were possible for Mr. Cook to move Apple production out of China immediately, he would risk stirring Beijing’s ire and endangering a roughly $70 billion business there. His only option is to continue pushing more final assembly of Apple products to places like India and Vietnam while leaving the bulk of complex manufacturing in China — walking a line that grows ever thinner and more precarious. Apple shares have lost more than $1 trillion since peaking in late December.
Mr. Trump would be a fool not to see past Apple’s politicking this time. Then again, he often cares more about appearances than principles. Anyone betting on Apple’s future should hope Mr. Cook has one more diplomatic ace up his sleeve. This time, the odds against him are long.
A version of this article appears in print on April 10, 2025, Section A, Page 27 of the New York edition with the headline: You Might Want to Replace Your iPhone Now. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper |
This shyt is crazy. Dude said "We don't care we been here 5000 years"
iceberg_is_on_fire
Wearing Lions gear when it wasn't cool
An amazing Jedi Mind Trick
iceberg_is_on_fire
Wearing Lions gear when it wasn't cool
This shyt is crazy. Dude said "We don't care we been here 5000 years"
Standing on business.
This shyt is crazy. Dude said "We don't care we been here 5000 years"
Larry Summers was putting belt to ass 
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New Generation of African Chocolatiers Would Be Hobbled by U.S. Tariffs
The new levies come as nations on the continent continue to struggle with the fallout of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
New Generation of African Chocolatiers Would Be Hobbled by U.S. Tariffs
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The new levies come as nations on the continent continue to struggle with the fallout of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
April 9, 2025
Two chefs in a kitchen handling roasted cocoa beans.
Dana Mroueh, left, owner of Mon Choco, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 2019.Luc Gnago/Reuters
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Dana Mroueh, a small-business owner in Ivory Coast, was negotiating to introduce her organic chocolate bars into stores in New York and Washington when President Trump announced new tariffs on all U.S. imports last week.
Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa producer, and the United States is the world’s largest consumer of chocolate, though most of it comes from Canada and Mexico.
Ms. Mroueh wants more chocolate from Africa to break into the American market. Her company, Mon Choco, is part of a new generation of West African chocolatiers striving to create jobs and wealth at home by transforming raw cocoa beans into processed delicacies. “We were hoping to start exporting within the next few weeks,” she said.
Now she fears the Trump administration’s war on tariffs will badly hurt her business. On Wednesday, the president said he would pause his reciprocal tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days. The tariffs, should they go into effect, are expected to hobble several African economies that had long seen in the United States a welcoming market.
It is not just cocoa. Car parts from South Africa and apparel from Madagascar will also be hit, and Lesotho, the southern African nation that provides denim used in jeans, is poised to bear some of the highest levies, at 50 percent.
“We’re definitely going to face some issues,” Ms. Mroueh said.
Workers in a large denim factory.
A textile factory in Maseru, Lesotho, last month.Roberta Ciuccio/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The tariffs come as African nations are still reeling from the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The agency, which provided crucial foreign aid on the continent for more than six decades, was gutted shortly after Mr. Trump took office in January.
“The United States’ credibility in Africa had already been damaged by the sudden closure of aid programs,” said Karen Mathiasen, a project director at the Center for Global Development. “Now the tariffs will only add to that, because there’s no methodology and no clear signal for African countries on what to do to get rid of the tariffs.”
In Ivory Coast, farmers have been picking cocoa husks this month as part of the semiannual harvesting season. Nearly six million people rely financially on cocoa in the West African nation, which produces about 45 percent of the world’s crispy sour beans that are turned into sweet treats.
Global cocoa prices have nearly tripled over the past two years because of low supplies caused by poor weather in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s second-largest producer. Yet most West African farmers live in poverty, with intermediaries reaping the benefits of the lucrative industry.
Global chocolate manufacturers like Mars, Hersheys and Cargill, did not respond to a request for comment on how the new U.S. tariffs might affect their imports.
Europe, not the United States, remains the main destination for Ivorian cocoa, and Asia has been a fast-growing market in recent years. Still, the American tariffs only add to the uncertainty of the African cocoa sector, which has struggled in recent years to increase its value by producing semi-processed and processed goods like cocoa paste and chocolate.
“Are we going to export less because consumers might consume less?” asked Olga Yenou, an Ivorian entrepreneur whose company, Tafissa, exports more than 20 percent of its production of cocoa paste and butter to the United States.
Before this week, more than 30 African economies had been exporting goods to the United States duty free as part of an agreement called the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
The legislation supporting the act expires in September. On the other end, China eliminated tariffs for goods from 33 African countries in December last year. At $295 billion last year, its level of trade with African economies was four times higher than U.S.-Africa trade.
African leaders and analysts studying the continent’s economies have called on the United States to renew the free-trade agreement, though the new tariffs have effectively ended it already, economists say.
“Africa isn’t shielded by the trade agreement it had with the United States,” said Zainab Usman, the head of the Africa program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. “But that means that it might be possible to negotiate a new future for U.S.-Africa trade relationships.”
In Ivory Coast, cocoa prices have fallen by more than 10 percent since last week. There are concerns among exporters that more U.S. chocolate makers will now turn to cocoa-producing countries like Ecuador, which is facing lower tariffs, to do business.
For artisanal chocolate makers like Ms. Mroueh, a once-alluring market suddenly looks confusing and volatile. “We’re a bit lost now,” she said.
Elian Peltier is The Times’ West Africa correspondent, based in Dakar, Senegal.
A version of this article appears in print on April 9, 2025, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: African Chocolatiers May Buckle Under U.S. Tariffs. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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So everybody (including China albeit with a 20% tariff still) gets to keep exporting their tech and electronics to the US. The whole tariff thing is toothless now.
LVMH finds making Louis Vuitton bags messy in Texas
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Tassilo HummelApril 10, 20252:25 AM EDTUpdated 3 days ago
U.S. President Donald Trump visits the Louis Vuitton Rochambeau Ranch leather workshop in Keene, Texas
ALVARADO, Texas / PARIS, April 10 (Reuters) - Six years ago, LVMH's billionaire CEO Bernard Arnault and President Donald Trump cut the blue ribbon on a factory in rural Texas that would make designer handbags for Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s best-known luxury brands.
But since the high-profile opening, the factory has faced a host of problems limiting production, 11 former Louis Vuitton employees told Reuters. The site has consistently ranked among the worst-performing for Louis Vuitton globally, “significantly” underperforming other facilities, according to three former Louis Vuitton workers and a senior industry source, who cited internal rankings shared with staff.
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The plant’s problems – which haven’t previously been reported – highlight the challenges for LVMH as it attempts to build its production footprint in the U.S. to avoid Trump’s threatened tariffs on European-made goods.
“The ramp-up was harder than we thought it would be, that’s true,” Ludovic Pauchard, Louis Vuitton’s industrial director, said in an interview on Friday in response to detailed questions about Reuters findings.
The Texas site, situated on a 250-acre ranch, has struggled due to a lack of skilled leather workers able to produce at the brand’s quality standards, the three former workers told Reuters. “It took them years to start making the simple pockets of the Neverfull handbag,” one source familiar with operations at the plant said, referring to the classic Louis Vuitton shoulder tote bag.
Errors made during the cutting, preparation and assembly process led to the waste of as many as 40% of the leather hides, said one former employee with detailed knowledge of the factory’s performance. Industry-wide, typical waste rates for leather goods are generally 20%, a senior industry source said.
Several former employees who spoke to Reuters described a high pressure environment. To boost production numbers, supervisors routinely turned a blind eye toward methods to conceal defects, and in some cases encouraged them, four former employees told Reuters.
Pauchard acknowledged there had been such cases in the past, but said the issue had been resolved. “This dates back to 2018 and one particular manager who isn’t part of the company anymore,” he said.
Poorly-crafted handbags deemed unfit for sale are shredded on-site and carted away in trucks for incineration, two of the sources with knowledge of the firm’s supply chain said.
A former production supervisor who often travelled to the site, said Louis Vuitton mostly used the Texas plant for less sophisticated handbag models, producing its most expensive products elsewhere.
Pauchard, Louis Vuitton's industrial director, said the company was being “patient” with “a young factory.”
“Any bag that goes out of it must be a Louis Vuitton bag, we make sure it meets exactly the same quality,” he said. “I am not aware of any kinds of issues suggesting the quality coming from Texas is any different from that coming from Europe.”
MADE IN USA
Perched behind a hill, the handbag maker's two production facilities were built on grounds near grazing cattle and a gas well. Louis Vuitton named the site Rochambeau in tribute to a French general who fought in the Revolutionary War.
Workers at the site make components and entire models of Louis Vuitton handbags like Felice pochettes and Metis bags – with "Made in USA" tags inside. The items sell for around $1,500 and $3,000 at high-end boutiques.
LVMH declined to comment when asked which handbag models are fully or partially made in Texas but former workers interviewed by Reuters mentioned the Carryall, Keepall, Metis, Felice and Neverfull handbag lines among the plant's products.
In its marketing material, Louis Vuitton says its handbags - typically made at French, Spanish or Italian leather ateliers by artisans known as "petites mains” - are assembled using a process that it has perfected since the mid 19th century. After cutting canvas and leather using hand tools and laser-cutting machines, they stitch pieces together using industrial sewing machines.
Workers at the Texas facility, which includes dedicated floors for cutting and for assembly as well as a warehouse, were initially paid $13 per hour. As of 2024, base pay for a leather worker position at the plant was $17 per hour, according to two people who recently applied for positions. The minimum wage in Texas is $7.25 an hour.
A former leather worker who arrived as a migrant in the U.S. some years before, said she felt proud when she was hired by the prestigious French brand, but said some workers struggled to meet the brand’s quality standards and production targets.
"We were under a lot of pressure to make the daily goals," said the former worker, who left the factory at the end of 2019.
Another person who worked at the facility until 2023 said she cut corners, like using a hot pin to “melt” canvas and leather to conceal imperfections in a particularly difficult piece called the Vendome Opera Bag.
Another former leather worker said they’d seen people melt material to hide holes or other imperfections in stitching.
Damien Verbrigghe, Louis Vuitton’s international manufacturing director, conceded some at the Texas plant had chosen to change jobs or leave because of its stringent quality requirements.
“There are artisans that we hire, who we train and who, after several weeks, or months, realize in light of the expectations, the level of detail that is required, they would rather work in other fields like logistics,” he said. “Some people chose to leave us, because it’s true that it’s a job that requires a lot of savoir faire.”
Three former workers at the plant said they received between two and five weeks of training. A current Louis Vuitton employee in France said receiving just a few weeks of training wasn't unusual as most learning happens on the production line supervised by more experienced craftspeople.
"Knowledge of sewing on leather/canvas is a plus, but not required. We offer comprehensive training,” the company said in a job posting for artisan positions in Alvarado published on its website in January.
Verbrigghe said training in Texas is “exactly the same program that we have in all our workshops,” that is, six weeks on the training line, where new artisans do nothing but learn basic operations and skills before going on to train on the assembly line. There, he said, they are “accompanied and continuously mentored by trainers.”
TAX BREAKS
LVMH got a host of tax breaks and incentives from Johnson County, including a 10-year, 75% property tax cut, promising the company an estimated $29 million in savings. ”We look forward to serving this exceptional company,” wrote the county’s top executive, Roger Harmon, in 2017 correspondence seen by Reuters.
In its 2017 application letter for the tax abatement, obtained by Reuters through records request, LVMH said it was aiming to hire 500 people within the first five years of the plan. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2019, Arnault said, “We will create approximately 1,000 high-skilled jobs here at Rochambeau over the next five years.”
Three former staffers, however, said headcount stood at just under 300 workers in February 2025, a figure Verbrigghe confirmed.
The White House did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Pauchard said initial recruitment difficulties were largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that followed, adding that a decline in local demand also played a role.
Despite the problems, LVMH is planning to move even more jobs to Texas. LVMH said in its 2017 filing that its first Texas production facility would cost around $30 million. A second filing from 2022 to local authorities put the cost of its second workshop, completed last year, at $23.5 million.
At a town hall last fall, workers at one of two California production sites were told that it would close 2028 and they could move to Texas or quit, according to a former employee who was present.
Pauchard confirmed the town hall and said Louis Vuitton intended to streamline its California operations and transfer more skilled artisans to Texas - with so far limited success. Its executives, he said, “underestimated the fact that Texas is far away from California.”
Reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Paris and Waylon Cunningham in Alvarado, Texas. Editing by Vanessa O'Connell and Michael Learmonth.
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Penguin electronics won
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