Just got my first Tariff eMail

[Johnny2Bad]

Just received in my inbox this morning an notice from a PCB fab that there may be parts cost increases due to recent US tariffs on Chinese manufactured electronics. I doubt that it will be the last, or barring notices, that price increases are not on the way.

What is interesting in this particular mail message is it's from a PCB fab based in Toronto, Canada that has a PCB fab in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and an assembly / parts stuffing facility in Toronto (Canada). The message mostly referred to component pricing at the Toronto facility.

The US tariffs obviously won't affect my prices for PCBs (I'm also in Canada) but as components are also affected, and in many cases these components are from US/Japanese/Chinese/EU-owned factories in the PRC, in some cases said components will be exported from China to the US and then re-exported to other nations. So the tariffs will affect residents other than the US.

May as well post any further notices or price increases you might see from the usual suppliers (Mouser, DigiKey, etc) and possibly even in the EU.

 

[JonSnell Electronic]

Here in the UK, my Chinese suppliers send my purchases to a facility in Luxembourg, they are received tariff free and then sent UPS to me, also tariff free.
Good system and perfectly above board and legal.
Why don't PCB fab do the same thing, after all, every little helps.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Here in the UK, my Chinese suppliers send my purchases to a facility in Luxembourg, they are received tariff free and then sent UPS to me, also tariff free.
Good system and perfectly above board and legal.
Why don't PCB fab do the same thing, after all, every little helps.

They have to work within the existing supply chains. Obviously that would not normally be an issue in the EU / UK or Oz/NZ or Japan or India as they receive their China-sourced parts directly.

For Canada all or almost all components come from US-based sources, so they are tariff-paid before they are re-exported. If you were to develop a supply chain anytime prior to the last couple of years, with the Canada-US FTA being in force since signed by the Mulroney/Reagan administrations in 1988 (NAFTA is just a revision to include Mexico, signed by Clinton but essentially one of the first acts in his term, negotiations were under Bush Sr) why would you do otherwise?

Canada has no duties or tariffs on electronics imports from anywhere except the usual prohibition of exports from North Korea / Taliban controlled areas of Iraq, etc. so in theory you are correct but a new supply chain would mean added costs since the Canadian market is small. (Australia / New Zealand are also small markets, but their location in South Asia gives them an advantage; in many cases they have the best prices available anywhere outside China).

We may see such a chain be developed in the future, depending on how persistent US tariffs will appear in the long term.

Obviously none of that will relieve any US-based suppliers, which will affect members in this forum, possibly the majority of members of DiyAudio, who reside there. There are US-based manufacturers with local production facilities (eg: capacitors), and many parts have origins in Asia but not in the PRC, but they certainly do not account for the majority of components we might use.