| ▲ | WorkerBee28474 2 days ago |
| The amount of copper on a PCB is only impossible to estimate if you don't try. Otherwise, you take the PCB copper thickness that you paid for, multiply it by the surface area, and multiply it by a guess of how much remains after etching. |
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| ▲ | xerp2914 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's not that easy according to the post: > U.S. customs is demanding a Certificate of Analysis (which could cost thousands of dollars and to determine what exact amount of Aluminum, Copper and Steel are in the product), otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product. This is a prime example of unnecessary complexity in international trade. Also why would they go through all that trouble? Easier to not sell there anymore. |
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| ▲ | petercooper 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Also why would they go through all that trouble? Easier to not sell there anymore. I don't agree with it, but isn't that ostensibly the end goal? That is, to force/encourage the manufacturing of goods in the US, rather than importing them. Of course, the metal itself still needs to enter the US either way. | | |
| ▲ | organsnyder 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure, that could be the eventual goal. But for that to happen, we need to ramp up manufacturing in thousands of sectors: not just the device, and not just everything it contains, but also the machines that make each of the components, the machines that make the parts for those machines, the raw materials for each... If this was a serious economic policy, it would have started small—perhaps a 5% tariff, to take effect in six months. Then, promise to ramp it up (say an additional 5% every year). | | |
| ▲ | xg15 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Also, it's a weird way to do "hidden" tariffs, in addition to the official ones that are bad enough. E.g. if he wanted to tariff electronic devices, why not tariff them directly, instead of those weird mental gymnastics? |
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| ▲ | 1-more 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > to force/encourage the manufacturing of goods in the US, rather than importing them. There are two mutually exclusive stated goals. One is, as you said, onshoring tech manufacturing to the USA [1]. The other stated goal is to eliminate income tax and replace it with income from tariffs [2][3]. To play these out on their own terms: if the first goal succeeds, then import volume would drop, and total tariff income would be too low to replace income taxes. If the first goal fails, then tariff income would be high enough to replace income taxes. IDK I haven't done the napkin math and I suspect neither have they. [1]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-says-his-tariffs-... [2]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/trump-proposes-abolishment... [3]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6371514396112 Going with Fox Business links to avoid accusations of bias. | |
| ▲ | freejazz 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, I could also cut off my hand in order to resolve an itch on it. End goal met! |
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| ▲ | xg15 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product. This seems like it could also lead to absurd situations. If a device contained both, would customs pretend it was simultaneously 100% made out of copper and 100% made out of steel and apply both tariffs? | | |
| ▲ | Mtinie 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > This seems like it could also lead to absurd situations. If a device contained both, would customs pretend it was simultaneously 100% made out of copper and 100% made out of steel and apply both tariffs? Yes, because it benefits the “here’s how much extra revenue our copper tariffs generate in 2025” sound bites for the Administration to tout (even if they are fabricated numbers based on nonsensical assumptions.) | |
| ▲ | general1726 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes they would 200% of product won't be a problem for them. Furthermore as I know customs, the moment you will start making stuff up in a too brazen way, they will just use Google, search some average price of products and use that instead what you are declaring. Sometimes it looks like they are getting a cut from amount of tariff they successfully scalp from you. | |
| ▲ | jasonjayr 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Even before these changes, there were absurdities where items cross a border with one step of the manufacturing process missing because in one direction it's an unfinished good that has no tariff, and in the other direction it's a finished good coming from a preferred country with a lower or no tariff. | |
| ▲ | MadnessASAP 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The situation is already absurd, what's a little more absurdity. |
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| ▲ | wqaatwt 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s easiest to not make any money in general. Per capita Americans consumer more stuff than almost everyone else. It’s a huge and highly lucrative market and will remain such for at least some time still. Losing a significant proportion of their revenue can easily bring down plenty of businesses. | |
| ▲ | kube-system 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The two statements in the OP seem opposed to each other. Why would one need to estimate if an estimate isn't sufficient? | | |
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| ▲ | os2warpman 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why do you assume the person selling the PCB is the one who designed and ordered its manufacture? Olimex sells kits, kits made by others. They don't know how much copper is in the MPS430F5438 because Texas Instruments made the MPS430F5438. |
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| ▲ | 4ndrewl 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think that's fair. It's also fair for a company to say 'f- that, even just doing that eats away at our bottom line, we'll concentrate on more profitable markets' (which is the intention I guess. Go and build it in USA,USA,USA). |
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| ▲ | iAMkenough 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Even if you build in USA, you'll likely still need to import materials or pay a premium for domestic. | | |
| ▲ | throwmeaway222 2 days ago | parent [-] | | even at a 100% import on the mats, the actual end product would only go up 25 cents - the labor will get us- but that's the point. merican jobs |
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| ▲ | crote 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Great! Now prove it. The problem isn't creating a reasonable estimate, anyone can do that. Most cheap consumer PCBs are going to be 2-layer FR4 with 1oz/sq. ft. of copper, minus some etched away, with negligible copper in parts like chips. That indeed should get you fairly close. But there are also 32-layer PCBs, and even PCBs with a solid copper core. And your PCB could be filled with copper inductors! Similarly, it could also be a solid aluminum-core PCB. If I were a malicious customs officer, I would insist that the only valid upper bound is a 100% copper PCB, which is also 100% aluminum, and 100% whatever else. Don't want to pay that? No problem, just provide a certified lab analysis report! Simple things rapidly get complicated when the goal is to frustrate the process as much as possible. You don't live in a modern economy focused on global trade anymore, you are now living in a Kafka book. |
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| ▲ | kjs3 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| multiply it by a guess There's your problem. It enables selective enforcement, because the authorities can decide at any time "if you're off by 0.1% we'll consider you in violation". |
