Disaster Strikes As Apple Says Trump’s Tariffs To Impact Long List Of Products

Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that – and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great!

— Donald Trump, July 24, 2018

The President is pretty convinced that protectionism is the way to go when it comes to restoring lost American “greatness”.

But not everyone is sold on the idea. In fact, there’s a strong argument to be made that Trump’s “greatest” tariffs are just like his casinos, his fake “university” and his mail order steaks business – guaranteed to bankrupt anyone who touches them.

Just ask America’s farmers, who are now quite literally on government welfare thanks to Trump’s lunatic efforts to roll back the clock on globalization. While crop prices have been falling for years, it is no coincidence that Bloomberg Agriculture Subindex has fallen precipitously since the trade tensions with China really started to escalate this year:

(Bloomberg)

Still, Americans are a gullible bunch which is why some of the very same farmers who have now been forced into a situation where they’ll need to accept subsidies or go broke, recently told CBS that they’re still willing to “fight to death” for Trump’s MAGA push. They’ll even buy a $45 hat from Trump with some of their bailout money (see the linked post).

So what’s it going to take to convince Americans that the President’s tariffs are a one-way ticket to nowhere? Maybe higher prices for Apple products will do the trick.

Shares of Apple slid sharply just before the close of trading on Wall Street Friday and the proximate cause were reports that in a letter to the government, Tim Cook warned that the next round of tariffs on China will affect a wide range of Apple products including:

• Apple Watch,
• Apple Pencil
• Air Pods
• MacMini
• Apple adapters, cables and chargers
• Apple– designed components and made-to-specification tooling for Apple’s U.S. manufacturing and product repair facilities
• specialty testing equipment for Apple’s U.S. product development labs
• servers
• hard drives
• cables for Apple’s U.S. data centers that support global services such as the App Store

Oops.

(Bloomberg)

Will this be the tipping point for a country that suffers from an acute addiction to smart devices?

Maybe America will start reading the writing on the wall when their Apple addiction suddenly becomes more expensive.

Read more:

Trump Delivers $267 Billion Trade Escalation Out Of The Clear Blue Sky (Figuratively and Literally)