"About 80 per cent of semiconductors manufactured in the United States cross the border to undergo advanced testing and assembly at IBM’s Bromont facility, according to the office of Federal Minister François-Philippe Champagne."
There is a bigger lesson here. Most North American trade is in intermediate goods, with many parts crossing the border multiple times. If the US slaps a 25% tariff on everything that crosses the border, the whole North American economy will collapse.
https://x.com/PeterBerezinBCA/status/1896922866693832743...if only Trump 2.0 is surrounded by policy experts who could first do their respective due diligence before Trump willy nilly fires his tariff salvo, at least they could better understand the nuances of all possible policy impacts.
...but in Trump 2.0, Trump is surrounded by sycophants who would rather agree with the boss and be on his better side rather than advising against his wishes.
...so it will be very embarrassing and unprofessional looking for a President of the United States to be doing U-turns and policy reversals on the whim, like a child throwing tantrums to get what he wants without even talking to industry leaders.
...the US auto chieftains know his North American tariffs will be a policy nightmare for them, it raises the cost and price of their cars while incoming Korean and Japanese cars and components are yet to get the tariffs.
...Trump is not being clever, even if he thinks his tariff policy will help America, no one knows, least of all himself, the true ramifications on the industry supply chain and impact on domestic industries - a smarter approach would be a more thorough analysis to determine what should and should not be tariffed and how it is to be done properly.
...no one even clearly understand how his reciprocal tariff works. Vietnam may impose say 100% tariff on an imported American product, but which Vietnam does not correspondingly sell the same product to the US to receive a reciprocal 100% tariff, so how would US levy a reciprocal tariff on other products that Vietnam sells to US- would they also carry 100%?
...the lack of clarity would create mass chaos and confusion, leading to behaviours seeking loopholes (like selling to another party via a country with lower tariff to route to US). It would be a traders nightmare, and will make cost of doing business higher. So it becomes a global problem.
