Explaining What the Hell is Going On With U.S. Tariffs and Chinese Injection Molds
First off, every industrial designer knows that getting products made can be extraordinarily complicated. Even objects putatively manufactured in the U.S. may be assembled from parts made elsewhere. This is also true of production lines themselves, which may have American factories ejecting parts from injection molds…made in China. Understanding these complexities is, obviously, the first step towards managing them.
There's no doubt that the U.S. runs a trade imbalance with China, and that it is in America's best interests to rectify that. But to accomplish that requires a careful analysis of how things are made, and a structured plan to protect American workers with minimal disruption. That's not possible if you have policymakers who won't read even basic briefings because they prefer to go with their guts.
President Trump famously said that trade wars are "easy to win." He holds that belief because he doesn't understand the complexities of manufacturing. And the result of his oversimplified views has been uncertainty and chaos for manufacturers. What's currently going on with injection molds is a prime example.
In July, the Trump administration imposed a $34 billion round of tariffs on Chinese-made goods. This included Chinese-made injection molds. Sounds good, right? After all, there are U.S.-based manufacturers of injection molds, and they are getting trounced by Chinese mold makers, who are currently far faster. "U.S. tool shops typically take 18-20 weeks for each tool build," custom injection molder Sajar Plastics wrote to the U.S. Trade Representative, as reported in Plastics News. "Many of the tools we currently have in China are ready to ship within the next four weeks and be in production in the next 10 weeks."
So if we were to slap a 25% tariff on Chinese-made molds, U.S. mold makers will thrive. U.S. workers win! Easy, right? Read more at https://www.core77.com
We are a precision plastic injection mold supplier with the capability to design and build inexpensive and efficient molds to produce your parts, and the modern efficient machinery to mold your parts efficiently, accurately and inexpensively. Quality is a hallmark of our operation, with quality system equivalent to ISO-9000 in-place to ensure our production meets your requirements!
