New US camera import tariffs - 25-50%

[Andrew Reid]

2 hours ago, Snowfun said:

Some of the AI generated Trump stuff on IG is superb. We’re in for a golden age of stand-up comedy. Although how can you make the Trump joke any funnier?

Granted, hilarious as all the job losses and the rise of a fascist dictatorship in the West is, we must remind ourselves to buy local because it'll be local businesses that die first in all this buffoonery.

For example, the niche smaller camera shops in America which import from Asia.

Smaller Chinese manufacturers that make niche products like camera cages and rigs.

And so on.

It'll be good for the climate though won't it?

[Andrew Reid]

Canon price increases on all products coming within 2 weeks.

https://www.canonrumors.com/price-increases-coming-from-canon-usa/

This will have a ripple effect too, on second hand prices globally.

It might finally be time to stop buying shit.

[BTM_Pix]

5 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

It might finally be time to stop buying shit.

[Emanuel]

Blackmagic Design, an Australia-based digital cinematography camera company, was gearing up to start making products in the United States before the Trump administration blew a tariff-shaped hole in its plans. Now, not only is Blackmagic having to increase prices in the US to mitigate some of the levies on imported goods, but those same tariffs are also making it difficult to justify opening a US production line.

“We were planning to build a new factory in Dallas, Texas, to streamline our supply chain and allow us to work more directly with US semiconductor companies,” Blackmagic Design spokesperson Patrick Hussey told The Verge. The introduction and ever-shifting confusion around President Donald Trump’s blanket global tariffs have since complicated things according to Hussey, because while the semiconductor parts and PCBs used in Blackmagic’s cameras are sourced from US companies, those companies are importing them from overseas.

“If we proceed with the US factory, we’d incur tariffs on those parts, increasing costs and negating the savings we anticipated,” said Hussey.

It’s a no-win situation that many other businesses in and outside of the US are facing if they deal with global suppliers. While Trump has brazenly declared that tariffs will incentivize companies to bring manufacturing to the US to remain competitive, if these manufacturers use foreign equipment or materials in their supply chain, they may — directly or indirectly — still get hit with hefty import fees. (That’s leaving aside the cost of doing business when the fees change dramatically from day to day.)

A supply chain survey conducted by CNBC found that 61 percent of respondents from unspecified businesses would be financially better off moving from high-tariff countries to lower-tariffed countries instead of the US, and 81 percent said if they did relocate to the US, they would automate production instead of hiring human workers, failing to deliver the manufacturing jobs Trump promised. 61 percent of the companies also warned they would raise prices for products coming in under the new tariff rates.

Blackmagic Design customers have already noticed a price hike has been applied to all products sold in the US, with the new Pyxis 12K briefly listed at $6,600 after initially being marketed at $5,000. This has since fallen to $5,500 after Blackmagic announced it had moved Pyxis production to lessen the tariff impact, but prices in every country besides the US have remained completely unscathed.

“Due to new government tariffs, price increases in the US have been unavoidable,” said Hussey. “That said, we operate factories in several countries, so production of some product lines has been relocated to reduce the impact on our customers.” Hussey told The Verge that Blackmagic is now planning to “wait a few months” to see if the supply chain for the components it needs will move to the US. “If it does, we could still achieve the supply chain benefits we were aiming for.”

The Trump Administration added “smartphones, computers, and other electronics” to its list of tariff exemptions last week — a list with no clear carveout for cameras or camera-specific manufacturing equipment — but then swiftly warned that companies shouldn’t get comfy. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said these are not “a permanent sort of exemption,” and that these goods will be hit with the same unspecified tariff rules that Trump is expected to apply to the semiconductor industry in “a month or two.”

 

https://www.theverge.com/news/649225/blackmagic-design-trump-us-tariffs-price-hike

[MrSMW]

4 hours ago, Emanuel said:

and that these goods will be hit with the same unspecified tariff rules that Trump is expected to apply to the semiconductor industry in “a month or two

Industry and customers alike just love this kind of 💩 

It’s worse than waiting each time for the next Lumix camera announcement and whether they even will or not…

It’s called ‘instability’ and when times are not stable, no one spends any 💰 

[maxJ4380]

I suspect i got caught up in some of that " instability " last week when the aus dollar did a pretty good impression of that last ship scene from the titanic...  I had decided to purchase the reaper software that allows one to make music on a computer.

I had been evaluating it for 360 days +.  I just picked a bad day to buy it lol. US $66 went to $113 Australian, that's a nasty unexpected jolt to the system. It also makes me question further purchases when the  US $ becomes involved.

I haven't bought anything out of the US for the last few years as postage from the US is just astronomical and i have happy enough to source items from japan mostly.  From now on, i personally will be thinking quite hard about any further purchases from abroad and that's lose / lose situation for everyone, i guess. 

On the upside i did find two smc takumars in an old camera bag up in the shed today. Which did brighten up my day a little. 

[Ilkka Nissila]

7 hours ago, MrSMW said:

It’s called ‘instability’ and when times are not stable, no one spends any 💰 

Rich people do. "Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own." 

[eatstoomuchjam]

16 hours ago, Emanuel said:

We were planning to build a new factory in Dallas, Texas, to streamline our supply chain and allow us to work more directly with US semiconductor companies,” Blackmagic Design spokesperson Patrick Hussey told The Verge. The introduction and ever-shifting confusion around President Donald Trump’s blanket global tariffs have since complicated things according to Hussey, because while the semiconductor parts and PCBs used in Blackmagic’s cameras are sourced from US companies, those companies are importing them from overseas.

“If we proceed with the US factory, we’d incur tariffs on those parts, increasing costs and negating the savings we anticipated,” said Hussey.

This is all one of the most boggling parts of the announced tariffs.  If the goal is to onshore manufacturing, tariffs should be on completed products, not on subassemblies or raw stuff.  I don't remember if I mentioned it here before, but this whole thing even had Mr. Beast (of all people!) making a salient point.  The tariffs will lead to him offshoring more of his chocolate bar production.

He said that right now, he has factories in the US and Peru making his bars.  There's almost no part of the US capable of commercial cacao production (Hawaii only, and they don't make enough).  Since the US factory makes bars for export, the tariffs on cacao import will drive up the price of the bars from his US factory, making them less competitive abroad.  Moving them to Peru means that the raw goods prices will remain tariff-free.

It's absolutely bonkers to think that saying "Pay 10% extra for a foreign-made product made with cheaper labor" and "Pay 10% extra + extra labor costs for a domestic-made product" somehow results in companies screaming "Let's on-shore that stuff!"  I mean, maybe for the materials that can be domestically-sourced like iron, that could be a viable strategy...  but for anything that we don't build here, the only possible end result can be higher prices and production remains where it is (or shifts to a lower-tariff country).

[Andrew Reid]

I agree it's all bonkers, added to which the fact that America leads the entire world in services, especially tech and financial services, which more than make up any so-called trade deficit in terms of physical goods production, and a lot of these services are highly subsidised by cheap manufacturing of products abroad.

Take the iPhone for example. The hardware is imported, but the services are an export to the entire world, in terms of the App Store, iCloud, Apple Studios and so on.

So if the hardware is no longer to be made affordably thanks to Chinese wages and factories the size of cities, the revenue goes down for ALL of Apple's services.

The US is 90% a services economy, so it stands to lose an incredible amount of money and high quality jobs if such products are undermined.

Apple is only one example, there's also Microsoft, Google, Amazon who have highly profitable service exports built off the back of Chinese made hardware.

And the geo-political side of this is very dangerous for the US.

Europe especially and the rest of the world have massive leverage over US services, if they wanted to boot out VISA, Mastercard, PayPal, eBay, Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft or tax their digital services at 25%, that would destroy the  US economy and there would be massive unemployment.

Trump doesn't know his arse from his elbow and it's why his businesses all failed.

[Andrew Reid]

17 hours ago, Emanuel said:

“Due to new government tariffs, price increases in the US have been unavoidable,” said Hussey. “That said, we operate factories in several countries, so production of some product lines has been relocated to reduce the impact on our customers.” Hussey told The Verge that Blackmagic is now planning to “wait a few months” to see if the supply chain for the components it needs will move to the US. “If it does, we could still achieve the supply chain benefits we were aiming for.”

I don't see how Blackmagic or anyone else can trust the US enough to make decisions a few months from now.

Trump's handling of tariffs where they come on and off at random intervals, means the required level of stability in economics and tax just isn't there for companies like Blackmagic to be making major decisions like relocating production.

Added to that the Trump government's blatant undermining of the law, undermining judges, illegal deportations and arrest of European tourists at the border, just shows that the USA is now officially a lawless country or on the way to being one.

Investors hate chaos.

Lawless behaviour from the government is a recipe for total chaos and if I were Blackmagic or any other camera company right now I wouldn't be waiting a few months to see how it all pans out, I'd be waiting for 5 years and a new government.

Which means the US is probably going to have a recession and a massive downturn in foreign investment.

[fuzzynormal]

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

chaos

Seems like there's a goal for all of this.  Wonder what that is?  One can only imagine.  Assuming we're allowed to imagine and aren't put to death by the state beforehand.

What would supply side Jesus do?

[hoodlum]

I guess the US doesn't want those in other countries to invest in their businesses.  I don't think they realize the consequences if this goes through.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/88b464f77c2863c66a9326ee3eb93664ae337885ca5483f02881b645ad033c36/SWHM3X32RBFQFM2OX4MG5IDEWY/

Canadian investors holding U.S.-listed securities could see a sudden spike in the amount of tax they owe under a recent U.S. bill that has been tabled as a retaliatory measure against what it calls “discriminatory taxes” of foreign countries, including Canada’s digital services tax.

If passed, the proposed legislation would add 5 percentage points to the withholding tax rate each year for four years on certain types of U.S. income for anyone living in a country that imposes a tax that the U.S. considers discriminatory or extraterritorial for U.S. citizens or corporations. The additional 20-per-cent withholding tax would remain in place as long as the other country’s disputed tax is in effect.

The proposed bill appears to be targeting jurisdictions that have implemented a digital services tax on large U.S. technology companies or have an undertaxed payments rule (UTPR). Canada’s DST was enacted in 2024.

The proposal means that Canadians who own U.S. securities that pay dividends or interest, or have realized gains, could see a large tax increase, said Kris Rossignoli, a cross-border tax and financial planner with Cardinal Point Wealth in New York.

[newfoundmass]

Shits fucked. 

[newfoundmass]

There really is no good that will come of this, at least not for 99% of us. There will of course be those who reap massive profits from the chaos, but it'll be at the expense of all of us and it'll be the same people who are already obscenely wealthy.

A sizeable portion of this country wants fascism, even if they are too dumb enough to realize it. Arrest someone here legally for practicing free speech? Many will applaud it, more will shrug with indifference. Send someone wrongly to a prison in El Salvador? Again, people will applaud it while others, again, are indifferent. "Law and order" they proclaimed, yet they cheer on the government ignoring supreme court rulings and the pardoning of thousands of people who violently stormed the capitol building. 

The economy is on the brink of a recession. Some economists already think we're in one. Things are going to get a lot worse. 

It's not just that we're being run by a bunch of morons, it's that they're truly bad actors who want to cause irreparable damage to the federal government. 

The opposition party is incompetent and ineffectual. I have no faith that they'll put up an effective fight for the midterms, let alone in the next presidential election, assuming we have one. 

Shits so fucked. 

[maxJ4380]

On 4/9/2025 at 6:03 AM, Ilkka Nissila said:

Industry will never return to the US because the American people are not willing to do that kind of work for as little money as the people who live in the 3rd world are willing to do it for. Not even close. Tariffs would need to be something 500-1000% for the manufacturing to actually return to the US. And that would make a lot of the American people poor in terms of what purchasing power they have.

Same problem over here local growers, can not get locals to harvest vegetables. Its all done by back packers and islanders now. In less than ten years. Its gone from contractors, and two crews of casual pickers. Which consisted of few locals and the grey nomads who were either heading north for the winter or south depending on the season.  Local contractors who were paid by the box and had usually picked 70 pallets of produce and could go home by lunchtime while the casuals kept picking till 3ish to pick the same amount.

Carrots are machine harvested and fed straight  into semi trailers and carted away you might see 3 people all day. Other vegies like lettuce, cabbage, leeks in winter still done by hand which requires a tractor driver, forklift driver and 5 people cutting and 2 or 3 packers. Theres still jobs in town, their easy to fill.  With air conditioned offices, desk chairs, but try filling a position that has manual labor involved and outside,  its a different story. Theres some sort of arrangement that if backpackers do 90 days of work in an agricultural area, then the government adds 90 days to your visa. Which probably works out great at the end they can go do all the touristy things they want to do like visit ayers rock and the great barrier reef while the government get it all back in fees, permits and fuel excises. Still good on them for living the dream.

my brother recently bought the block next door, when it came up for sale. So he could be closer to his b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r parents. i suspect he's in for a surprise when payday comes as he's used to getting a builder's wages in the city.

On 4/9/2025 at 4:15 AM, MrSMW said:

I just went out into my back garden and turned the lawn into a field of soy beans instead.

Someone has to feed those estimated 440 million piggies in China and I reckon I’m gonna get me a slice of that piggy pie.

Years ago i grew 4 little piglets into bigger piglets. Those 4 little piggies did not go off to market.. i could buy a 400 kilo pallet of 2nd hand apples for $50 which made for cheap feed, however if you only fed them grain or pellets there is simply no profit in it. I also know for a fact, pigs will eat anything, literally anything..  which is why i'm not interested in buying either Chinese pig meet or US pig meat and i'm happy neither does the rest of australia even if trump does want to have a good cry about it lol 

[Ty Harper]

Already seeing used cameras going up in prices in my neck of the woods. Specifically the R6 MKII, which has been going for around $2K CAD used for a while, is now going for $2700-$3K CAD. 

[John Matthews]

2 hours ago, Ty Harper said:

Already seeing used cameras going up in prices in my neck of the woods. Specifically the R6 MKII, which has been going for around $2K CAD used for a while, is now going for $2700-$3K CAD. 

Clearly, if you have a camera to buy, you should have already done it. New and used prices will probably go up by 10-30% or more. Fortunately, I already have 2 cameras that work great. I hope to potentially wait out this presidency. The crazy thing is I bet there are countries, businesses, and individuals everywhere who are going to try the same. I'm trying to imagine if companies like Canon, Nikon, or Sony are going to just cut back production or simply stop. You'd be insane to have a company right now and continue just like before. They need money coming in. Are Asia and Europe enough of a market for them? Maybe, but there are tough times ahead.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

Clearly, if you have a camera to buy, you should have already done it

Or the opposite which is if there was something you needed to buy, if the possibility existed, to have done that a couple of weeks back, but selling anything in the near future might actually be to your benefit because if used prices do increase?

 

[John Matthews]

44 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Or the opposite which is if there was something you needed to buy, if the possibility existed, to have done that a couple of weeks back, but selling anything in the near future might actually be to your benefit because if used prices do increase?

 

Yes, the used prices might go up just as much as the new prices, making it a wash. Except when the prices eventually fall when sanity kicks in (but that might be giving too much credit to some).

[fuzzynormal]

11 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

they're truly bad actors who want to cause irreparable damage

Dark Enlightenment is a thing. 

 

2 hours ago, MrSMW said:

selling anything in the near future might actually be to your benefit

Sure, you get a bigger number for selling used, but the money you get for it buys less as inflation screams upward.  Hooray.