What Trump’s Tariffs Mean for Tech—and You

It’s been total chaos since President Trump announced tariffs last week. Despite the endless reporting on this story, none of it really makes any sense yet. So today, we attempt to make sense of how the tariffs could revamp the entire tech industry and what you can do to deal with this new normal.

You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and Katie Drummond on Bluesky at @katie-drummond. Write to us at [email protected].

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Michael Calore: Katie, welcome to the roundtable.

Katie Drummond: Thank you so much for having me.

Michael Calore: Your permanent seat now.

Katie Drummond: This is it. I am your third cohost. And just so everybody knows, a little PSA here, Zoë Schiffer will be taking over the second episode of this podcast on a weekly basis, so you will still be hearing from her.

Lauren Goode: Katie, I’m so glad that the first show you’re joining us for is a really positive one. We’re going to talk about personal finance, our 401(k)s.

Katie Drummond: Everything is going great out there.

Michael Calore: What’s on your mind, aside from tariffs and the economy?

Lauren Goode: 401(k)s.

Michael Calore: 401(k)s?

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: I’ve been thinking a lot about coffee.

Lauren Goode: What about it?

Michael Calore: Well, the price of coffee beans is going to skyrocket. It’s going to go straight through the roof.

Lauren Goode: Honestly, I’ve been thinking about White Lotus too.

Katie Drummond: To segue off of Lauren’s answer, I’ve been watching a Netflix program called Temptation Island, so I’ve been thinking a little bit about that. It doesn’t require you to think that much, but to the extent that it requires thought.

Michael Calore: Is that a reality television program?

Katie Drummond: It’s a reality … Yes, it is. I was trying to think of a fancier way to describe it, but look, Temptation Island is a Netflix show where four couples decide that it’s time to test their relationship, and so they go to an island where they live with a bevy of sexy singles and try to withstand the temptation to see if their relationship is really built to run the course. It is outrageous. And you know what? Given that I spend so much time thinking about tariffs and Doge and the Trump administration and everything happening in this country and around the world, I just want to think about the stupidest thing possible. So that’s what I think about, Temptation Island.

Lauren Goode: This I think has been one of the most surprising learnings I’ve had about Katie since she joined us as WIRED’s editor in chief in 2023. It was your affinity for reality TV.

Katie Drummond: That’s me, Lauren.

Lauren Goode: I love it.

Katie Drummond: That is all there is to it, really.

Lauren Goode: And now the most important question is have tariffs been placed on Temptation Island? Because we know that there are tariffs on some really random islands.

Michael Calore: All right, well, let’s bring the reality TV discussion crashing down to reality and get into this week’s show. This is WIRED’s Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. Today we’re talking about how the new tariffs announced by President Donald Trump threaten to reshape the entire tech industry. We’ll look at how the tech companies big and small are dealing with the tariffs, including how the Silicon Valley power players who cozied up to Trump during last year’s election are facing huge hits to their businesses. And we ask, what does this all mean for you? We’ll look at the impacts this trade war will have on the products we all use and how you can best navigate this new normal. I’m Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture here at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: I’m Lauren Goode, I’m a senior writer at WIRED.

Katie Drummond: And I’m Katie Drummond, WIRED’s global editorial director.

Michael Calore: So Donald Trump announced tariffs last week that include two plans. And before we get into it, we have to say that things are moving very fast right now and we’re going to do our best to keep up. But up until Wednesday morning, one plan imposed a baseline tariff of 10 percent that would apply to nearly all US imports coming in from countries other than Canada or Mexico. The second plan would impose tariffs on goods coming in from 57 countries, and the tariffs vary from country to country, but go as high as 50 percent for some countries and 125 percent for China. And in the latest move, Trump put a ninety-day hold on those reciprocal tariffs for the rest of the world except for the one on China. So the rest of the world is still facing a 10 percent tariff unless you’re China, and then it’s 125 percent. So who knows what will happen in the next two days or even 12 hours. It’s total chaos and none of it really makes sense. But what we do know at this moment is that Trump has promised that the markets would boom, and boom the markets definitely have. The economy has been plunged into chaos, the stock market has gone down and then gone up. Companies and consumers are facing some pretty dire consequences as a result of these changes. Normally, this would be the part of the show where we break down who these tariffs affect, but really they affect everyone, right?

Lauren Goode: They are affecting in some way, literally everyone around the globe right now. One professor at the Wharton School who I spoke to called this cataclysmic on a scale of Covid in terms of disruption to the economy. Of course, Covid was a force majeure, and this was seemingly preventable. Two economists I spoke to last week on the heels of Trump’s announcement said that yes, these added costs from tariffs are definitely going to be passed down to the average consumer because businesses around the world can only do so much to cover their margins. And in general, this is just a massive disruption to trade, international trade as we’ve known it for the past 30 to 40 years. Trump’s argument has been that we need to close the trade deficit that we have with other countries, which is basically when a country’s imports far exceed its exports. But quite literally, everyone I’ve spoken to about this over the past week says that it’s his approach to these tariffs that has just created unbelievable instability that puts businesses in a worse place than they were just a week ago.

Katie Drummond: And I think too, there’s a lot of chatter back and forth around, well, how long will this really last? I mean he has in recent months announced tariffs and then clawed them back and reneged and renegotiated. And there’s a lot of speculation I think that this might be sort of this shock to the system and that he will find a way to save face while also sort of backing away from what was clearly a catastrophic decision. But what’s interesting to me about all of this too is OK, sure, maybe that will happen and this will be sort of like this short-term, very painful, very bizarre, scary episode in our global economy. But I think that the long-term impact of these tariffs and of Trump’s isolationist posture more generally, which of course tariffs are not the first time we have seen him really take that kind of US-centric isolationist stance toward the rest of the world. But even if he does sort of relent, I think the damage to international diplomacy, to our relationships with other countries, other governments, to trust in the United States, I think that there is permanent damage that has already been done. And so he might be able to backtrack on these tariffs. I mean, I certainly am of the opinion that he should, but I think that the reverberations that we will feel from this, sort of the collateral damage in terms of our relationships with the rest of the world, I think that we will feel that beyond the four years of President Trump that we are all getting through, frankly at this point, one day at a time.

Lauren Goode: They serve to instill a certain fear, I think. Both in our adversaries, but also now our allies and also domestically how business leaders are sort of just constantly trying to play chess with him. And in many instances, they probably are a couple steps ahead, but trying to play chess and figure out which way the wind is going to turn any given day so that they can effectively run their businesses.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Katie Drummond: Yeah. I mean, it’s exhausting for us. It’s exhausting for me, and I am not even directly involved in any of these conversations, and I just think there is this level of disdain towards the United States that had already, of course, taken root. I mean, that’s been a challenge depending on the country you’re talking about for a very long time. But people just think we suck and not wrong.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Katie Drummond: We kind of do. And I think that that sort of narrative will take a very long time to change again.

Michael Calore: We should talk about some of the folks who have been directly involved in these conversations, particularly the CEOs of Amazon, Apple and Tesla. That being Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk. With each of these guys, let’s talk about what the tariffs mean for their companies and what they have said about the tariffs and what some likely scenarios are down the road. I think the place that we have to start is with Trump’s Buddy-in-chief Elon Musk. What do the tariffs mean for Elon? What do they mean for his company?

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Elon is in a really interesting position here, and at the time of this taping, we know that he has diverged from Trump on the tariffs and has been pretty outspoken about how he feels about them. But part of the reason why he’s in such an interesting position is not just because he is Trump’s Buddy-in-Chief and he has Trump’s ear, but also he is the leader of an auto company that relies heavily on foreign parts and production. He’s the founder of SpaceX, which makes Starlink satellites, which not only use foreign imports and materials, but they’re also sort of reliant on international contracts for that business to run. And Elon also has an AI company, which in the very long term could end up being affected by tariffs if the construction of data centers is delayed or put on pause because of the tariffs and that sort of thing. Other people I’ve spoken to in Silicon Valley predict that actually this could end up being sort of good for AI as people start looking to software services to make their businesses more efficient. But that’s another podcast. The last time we checked, Tesla’s stock was down around 17 percent since the announcement of the tariffs. This is not good for Elon.

Katie Drummond: And I mean, given how badly he seemed to want to be involved in the Trump administration, I mean, he really wanted to be involved in the Trump administration. I mean, going back to the summer, he turned his social media platform X into a megaphone for the Trump administration and for Trump’s candidacy, he spent almost $300 million getting the president elected. It’s a little embarrassing to see how it’s actually turning out for him so far, right? I mean, his reputation among the general public has never been worse. Tesla was in the tubes even before the tariff announcements, the company was having a terrible time, and now obviously these tariffs are really messing up several of his businesses. As of this taping, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he’s lost $31 billion since the tariffs were announced, which even for Elon Musk, I mean, we talk a lot about, “Oh, he took a hit on his Tesla stock, this and that,” $31 billion is a lot of money. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what your net worth is. That’s a lot of zeros.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. I mean, finally, Elon and I have something in common because when I checked my 401(k)—

Katie Drummond: I admit I have not looked at my 401(k). I don’t want to know.

Michael Calore: You should never look at it. So you mentioned Lauren, that Elon has been quite outspoken over the last few days. What sorts of arguments has he been making?

Lauren Goode: He wants the US and Europe to have a zero tariffs agreement. Forbes reported that last weekend he blasted Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, for praising the tariffs. He has made some personal appeals to Trump, the Washington Post reported that based on sourcing. I mean, he’s been, I think amongst the group that we are talking about today on this podcast, he’s been one of the most vocal opponents in the business space.

Katie Drummond: Which I think is a very notable public shift for him. I mean, he has been using X and whatever sort of platforms he has to go to bat for the Trump administration nonstop, and he is losing his mind about the tariffs. I mean, he called Peter Navarro a moron. He said he was dumber than a sack of bricks over the tariffs. I mean, he is really going for it. And so clearly, I think this is indicative of how strongly obviously he feels about it, given how much water he seemed to be willing to carry, happy to carry for the Trump administration on other issues. On this one, he has done a complete 180.

Michael Calore: Does this signal the big breakup, the big inevitable crash and burn?

Katie Drummond: Every time I’m asked this question, no matter what is going on, I really will believe it when I see it. Politico reported last week, obviously that Elon would step away from Doge and his role ahead of schedule. We at WIRED have reported on a lot of tension between Elon and members of the administration and those close to the president that not everyone is happy about his role and about what he’s doing, and now he’s throwing this massive, very public temper tantrum. The thing is, do we actually think the president cares? I mean, this is someone who talk about reality TV. President Trump lives for this kind of drama. He loves it. And as far as we know, he still likes Elon and he certainly still likes Elon’s checkbook even if it is a little bit lighter than it was. So honestly, what’s interesting about this shift to me is that it asks a different kind of question. The question until recently has been, when is Trump going to sour on Elon? When will someone in his inner circle convince him that having this guy around is not worth the trouble, that it’s a bad idea? The question now kind of feels like, well, is there a chance that Elon sours on Trump and sours on this administration? And I think that, if Elon goes thermonuclear on the Trump administration, that will be very interesting. But again, I will believe it when I see it.

Michael Calore: Well, I want to talk next about my best friend in the world-

Katie Drummond: Oh boy.

Michael Calore: …Mr. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.

Lauren Goode: Oh, your besties, huh?

Katie Drummond: I had no idea you guys were so close. That’s so inappropriate, Michael.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, invite us to dinner sometime.

Michael Calore: Yes, I know. I know. That’s why I don’t write about Apple anymore. I’d have to disclose.

Lauren Goode: I love how Katie went straight for the ethics and I was like, “Invite us to dinner sometime.”

Katie Drummond: Oh boy.

Lauren Goode: I want to know what’s going on now.

Katie Drummond: Now I know.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: So what do tariffs mean for Apple? And I realize that is a very big question, but let’s see if we can unpack it.

Lauren Goode: Well, in the short term, it means that people are rushing to the Apple Store to buy iPhones. So I guess that’s working out pretty well for Apple at this moment. But in all seriousness, Cook does have a direct relationship with Donald Trump. During Donald Trump’s first term as president when he levied tariffs on China back in 2018, that wasn’t good for Apple. And Tim Cook reportedly had some conversations with Trump basically saying, “Look, iPhones are going to go up in price. This is not going to be a good thing.” To which Trump basically replied, “We’ll build them here.” He wrote on Twitter at the time, “make your plants in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now, exciting. Exclamation point. #MAGA.” Yes.

Katie Drummond: So stressful.

Lauren Goode: Right. That didn’t happen, but crucially, at that time, Apple began diversifying its supply chain and manufacturing and began making more products in Vietnam and India and other countries as well. And it actually has said now that it plans to import more iPhones from India into the US. So on the upside, Apple has some things in place that help the company in wild circumstances like this. On the downside, those other countries have been hit with Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs as well, and that has already changed, and none of us know when it’s going to change again at any moment. Apple has also been given exemptions in the past from tariffs, and you have to guess that Apple right now is almost certainly lobbying for new exemptions.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Katie Drummond: We will get into the big question here. The big question that I have, is it even possible in six months, in two years, in five years for Apple to manufacture iPhones and other products at scale in the United States? The administration certainly seems to think so. I just want to share this quote. Howard Lutnick, the tradecraft of America.

Howard Lutnick [Archival audio]: Our high school educated Americans, the core to our workforce is going to have the greatest resurgence of jobs in the history of America to work on these high-tech factories, which are all coming to America.

Katie Drummond: Very exciting promise by Howard Lutnick. I can’t wait to talk about whether any of that is actually possible.

Michael Calore: Certainly not in the short term.

Lauren Goode: Was this the same moment where he talked about the army of millions using tiny screws?

Katie Drummond: Oh, yes. The teeny tiny screws? The teeny tiny screws? Yeah.

Lauren Goode: That was the one on CBS Face the Nation, I think we all saw it.

Howard Lutnick [Archival audio]: The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of thing is going to come to America.

Michael Calore: So Elon was tweeting through it. Tim Cook has probably also been sitting on Twitter and popping off some tweets calling various members of the White House advisory staff morons, right?

Lauren Goode: Tim Cook has not said anything publicly.

Katie Drummond: Let’s give that man a little credit. He is way too smart to do that. Apple is as savvy as they come, I expect to hear nothing from them about this. To Lauren’s point earlier, I mean, they are certainly working this behind the scenes, but I would expect they want this to be from a public optics point of view, no comment, smooth sailing, et cetera.

Lauren Goode: Katie, you mentioned at the time of the inauguration, when we saw that photo of the tech CEOs who were in attendance, I think your remark was Tim Cook looks like he wants to vomit?

Katie Drummond: He was not exactly beaming with enthusiasm like some of his colleagues, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, et cetera. He looked like someone had died, and maybe it’s his company based on what’s happening right now,

Michael Calore: Here’s hope for the future. Well, let’s talk about one of the other people in that photo, Mr. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO. Now, Amazon is not a hardware company like Apple, but it deals in hard goods. So what do the tariffs mean for Amazon and its business?

Lauren Goode: Well, there’s also, we should just note, and our colleague, Zeyi Yang has been covering this at WIRED too, there’s something that’s been known as the de minimis exemption for e-commerce companies shipping goods from China, and part of this new tariffs package actually removes that exemption, which is not good for e-commerce companies.

Michael Calore: That’s if your goods cost less than $800?

Lauren Goode: I believe so, yes.

Michael Calore: You don’t have to pay the hefty import tax on it.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Exactly.

Katie Drummond: This one is a little bit less clear-cut to me, and I’m happy to argue about it or be told I’m wrong. This feels less dire for Amazon than it is for the Elons of the world and his companies and the Apples and the Tim Cooks. I mean the reliance that Amazon has on Chinese goods sold on their platform, I think it’s at least 50 percent. It’s more than 50 percent of what Amazon sells. But given Lauren what you just said, that these other Chinese commerce giants are going to be hit really hard by these tariffs, in some respects that feels like it sort of equalizes the playing field for Amazon. And then obviously Michael, to your point, they’re not a hardware company. Obviously they’re a massive commerce company, but they’ve also got Amazon Web Services, they have other facets to their company that feel much more insulated from the sort of immediate impacts of tariffs. I mean, how does that sit with both of you?

Michael Calore: Any disruption to the economy is going to hurt Amazon because people will just be less willing to spend money on things, but also they have this gigantic advertising business, and there’s the type of advertising that is brand awareness advertising, and then there’s the type of advertising that’s like, “Hey, click here and buy the thing.” And if a lot of those companies that are buying those second types of ads are from other countries, then those types of ads will stop showing up as often on Amazon. So that will definitely affect their bottom line.

Lauren Goode: That’s a great point. And the other thing I would consider too, and in fact one venture capitalist in Silicon Valley mentioned this to me earlier today, is that with Amazon Web Services, if the US does adopt a more isolationist and protectionist stance, which it seems like that’s what we’re moving towards, if you are a tech company in Europe and you’re looking for cloud services, but you’re worried about what’s ultimately going to happen to your data, or should you be instead turning to a European-based cloud services company, you may be less inclined to use AWS versus something else that’s available to you.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, that’s a really good point.

Michael Calore: All right, so yeah, Katie, to answer your question, it sucks for everyone.

Katie Drummond: Sucks for everyone.

Lauren Goode: It sucks for everyone, and I think this is exposing a lot of vulnerabilities that maybe we, frankly I don’t think I really considered before for some of these tech companies.

Michael Calore: Has Jeff Bezos been hanging out on threads in Blue Sky? Has he been talking about the tariffs publicly?

Katie Drummond: I think that Jeff Bezos and Amazon are too savvy to really go hard publicly. I did, as the person on this podcast obsessed with net worths apparently, check, and Jeff has lost over $20 billion since the tariffs were announced. $20 billion for Jeff, how many billions for Elon? I mean, that is real money even to people as rich as them. So he has not said anything. I would imagine he is not happy.

Lauren Goode: It’s good times. Yeah.

Michael Calore: So who else is talking about tariffs that we should pay attention to?

Lauren Goode: Well, there are some big money guys who have been pretty outspoken about this, and I think that is an interesting contrast to what’s going on with the tech CEOs. And I actually, I spoke to a political strategist in DC about this, and I was asking why some of these tech leaders aren’t being as outspoken, excluding Elon of course. And what this person told me pretty much tracked. One is that things are changing every single day. And so if you are someone like Tim Cook, why make a big statement that could be immediately outdated and not really give you any political capital. Two is that there is a legitimate fear of retaliation from the Trump administration this time around and how that could affect their companies and the thousands of employees who work for them. The third thing is that these tech leaders and billionaires have these direct lines to the president, and so they’re able to sort of lobby behind the scenes. They’re all probably privately negotiating right now with Howard Lutnick or Trump himself. And four is that right now the tech leaders are sort of able to hang out behind the banks and the hedge funders. People like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan and the hedge funder Bill Ackman, who have made public statements and just sort of sit back and let them do the talking about how bad this is for the economy, for the American economy broadly. And that way they’re still able to negotiate their own private exemptions for their different products and services. So they’re sort of not hanging their necks out there in the same way. They also often lean on trade groups like the Business Roundtable or the Business Software Alliance, the BSA, and essentially let them do the talking right now, but are still able to get their points across that way.

Michael Calore: They’re relying on their designated spokespeople?

Lauren Goode: That’s correct. Yeah.

Michael Calore: OK. We need to take a break and then we’ll come right back. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. OK, we talked about the CEOs and the tech giants, but now let’s talk about real people for a change. Let’s examine what Trump’s tariffs mean for some of our favorite consumer products and how all of these developments are going to change how we normal people spend our money. So what are some of the products that are being impacted? I want all of them listed right now.

Lauren Goode: Anything with a semiconductor in it. Phones, particularly the iPhone.

Katie Drummond: I mean, I think we actually published a part of a list today that I was reading the site and was just aghast: furniture, shoes and apparel, microwave ovens, silverware, plates, blinds, linens and curtains, toys, solar panels, building materials like vinyl flooring, cashews, candles, fans, air conditioner parts, golf clubs, exercise equipment, keyboards, auto parts, Christmas ornaments and home decor, brace yourself, toilets, food blenders, and seafood.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Wow.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Wow.

Katie Drummond: Brutal.

Lauren Goode: What did the cashew ever do to Trump?

Katie Drummond: Like what a grab bag of everything.

Michael Calore: Well, let’s zoom in on three big ones that relate to our world. First of all, the iPhone I think is probably the one that is on the top of most people’s minds. What’s going on with the iPhone? How are tariffs going to impact the cost of the iPhone?

Lauren Goode: I’m just going to ask our producer, could we just get that audio once more of the millions?

Howard Lutnick [Archival audio]: Millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws.

Lauren Goode: OK, great. So that’s not going to happen. The iPhone is an incredibly complex device, and not only that, but Apple’s supply chain is incredibly complex and one of the most sophisticated in the world. Apple uses more than 320 suppliers. I remember this shortly after I moved to Silicon Valley and I was a consumer tech reporter, and I was out one night and I ended up chatting with someone at a bar who used to work for Apple. And this person said to me, “You’re thinking about Apple all wrong. It’s not a consumer tech company, it’s a logistics company.” I mean, that lodged itself in my brain, and it is very true. To think that the US could spin up that kind of manufacturing even in a few years is a fantasy. And on top of that, a lot of the minerals and materials and components would still have to be imported.

Katie Drummond: OK, that was an amazing explanation. What makes me feel so crazy, as I was listening to you talk, Lauren, and thinking about this is how it has been so many years that Trump has been saying, “Exciting! Bring the iPhone manufacturing to America, exciting!” I really don’t like it when things are done badly or done incorrectly. And what makes me feel so crazy right now is do these guys listen to anyone? Have they taken five minutes to learn anything about how an iPhone is manufactured? How is it possible that they don’t know something like more than 320 suppliers, that minerals, materials and components would still need to be imported? How does the US government, the administration of this country not have any insight into what it actually takes to make this product?

Lauren Goode: There was a great Wall Street Journal breakdown that came out a few days ago, and already it’s outdated because the China tariffs changed, that basically showed the cost of the iPhone. What the consumer pays for it here in the United States, how much of that ultimately goes to Apple? So if you spend $1,100 on the iPhone 16 Pro, typically about $580 would be Apple’s cost. But when you throw the tariffs on top of that, that goes up to $850. And these numbers were not confirmed by Apple, it was a Wall Street Journal’s own estimation of it. And I don’t know how you look at that and you say, “Well, that makes sense. Consumers should just pay that much more for an iPhone until we take the three to five years or more to actually move just some of the manufacturing state side.” And still, that doesn’t ultimately make it a Made in America proposition. I think this is part of the, I even hate to say this, it’s the art of the deal. It’s this idea that if you sort of put out this incredibly extreme idea, bring everything back to America, do all this, then you basically put the CEOs in a position where they have to negotiate and they have to start doing things like, “Fine, we will make a $500 billion investment in American manufacturing over the next four years.”

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Katie Drummond: Right.

Michael Calore: And that’s ultimately the goal here is to get, they call it reshoring, to bring all of your overseas manufacturing back to your home country. And it’s just going to be extremely difficult for Apple to do that just because there are so many little pieces in an iPhone that have to be built in different ways, and you need to build tooling for that, and you need to have those facilities close to each other so that they can move quickly, and so they don’t have to incur crazy shipping costs. It’s just a nightmare when you think about that.

Katie Drummond: But I guess, Lauren, to your point, I mean, if the administration takes this public posture that is just obstinate and stupid and ridiculous, if they take it to the furthest extreme that they possibly can, which is exactly what they’re doing, the idea being that Apple will have no choice but to meet them somewhere in the middle, to bring some of these jobs and some of this manufacturing back to the United States over a period of years is I suppose if you want to give the administration the credit of thinking that they are strategic, sure let’s use that as our premise for a minute, then I guess that’s the strategy, right? They expect to meet somewhere in the middle. That’s why they’re doing all of this. That’s why Howard Lutnick sounds like such an idiot on Fox News is because somewhere in a back room, they know that they’re not going to get exactly what they’re talking about, they’re going to get something somewhere approaching it.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: That’s right. And then we’re going to end up with the AI generated images of five guys in a Patagonia vest screwing tiny little screws into oddly shaped iPhones.

Michael Calore: So I think it’s important for people to understand that prices are not going to jump tomorrow. Apple has been shipping iPhones into the US and has been stockpiling them for some time, and that will be able to fulfill demand for the next few months. But at some point in the middle of the summer, the prices are going to go up. The prices will go up considerably on the higher end iPhones, because if you think about a thousand dollars iPhone, the margin on that is pretty great. But the lower priced phones, and not just iPhones, but all smartphones that are lower priced, the ones that typically sell for $400 or $300, the price increases there are going to be felt much greater. For one reason because the margins are lower, so there’s less wiggle room for the company to absorb some of the cost of the final phone, but also it’s going to be felt even harder because typically people with lower incomes buy the cheaper phones and they can afford less of a price increase, and it will hurt more for them. So if you need to buy an iPhone or any kind of phone, buy it now.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: Well, same with cars. Let’s talk about cars.

Lauren Goode: Let’s talk about the cars.

Michael Calore: How are these tariffs going to impact the automobile

Lauren Goode: Time for car talk. Katie, did you have anything you wanted to weigh in on here?

Katie Drummond: Oh, with all of my car expertise?

Lauren Goode: Do you have a car?

Michael Calore: You are shopping for one.

Katie Drummond: Not only do I not have a car, I don’t have a driver’s license.

Lauren Goode: Oh! Wow. Have you been a New Yorker for that long?

Katie Drummond: I cannot drive. I started out as an incompetent teenage driver and I have not driven since. So living in New York worked out very well for me.

Lauren Goode: I love this journey for you.

Katie Drummond: And I’m not going to be able to afford one soon based on what I think we’re about to talk about. So fill me in.

Michael Calore: All right, well, last week the tariffs kicked in for any cars assembled outside the US, and that’s a 25 percent tariff on any car that’s assembled outside the US. And at the beginning of May, there will be an additional tariff applied to any imported auto parts. So that will affect any cars assembled in the US and it will affect repairs. So if you break a windshield and you needed a windshield in May, that windshield is going to cost you more if it was built outside the United States. There are some exceptions, of course, for specific parts of cars that are made in the US but that are shipped to Canada or Mexico to actually be slotted into the car. So if they make your brake pad in Michigan and they send it into Ontario to be put into a new car, then there will be an exception there. But automakers, by and large will still be paying at least partial tariffs on vehicles that are finished outside of the United States and partial tariffs on vehicles that are finished inside the United States. There are some automakers like Toyota and Hyundai that make a lot of cars overseas, and those will have all of the import tariffs for overseas products levied against them.

Lauren Goode: Wow. It’s going to be like the $100,000 Toyota.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: Isn’t it true too that when cars are being assembled and tested, that they might cross the border between the US and Canada like five times?

Michael Calore: Yeah, or Mexico. Yes. Yeah. That’s basically the way that manufacturing works is that your parts are built in different places and then they come together to be assembled in one place. And even when the assembly happens in the United States, sometimes parts of the car are partially put together in the US, sent across the border, they finish getting put together across the border, and then they come back into the US to be put into the car.

Lauren Goode: Wow.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Katie Drummond: That’s too much.

Michael Calore: It is too much.

Lauren Goode: But I think it also underscores what we’re talking about, which is we can’t just suddenly spin this all up in America.

Michael Calore: Yeah, yeah. It’s going to be quite difficult. So it’s also important to note that not only will this affect new cars, if you’re looking to buy a new car it’s going to make that more expensive, but if you own a car, then owning a car is going to get more expensive. Because you are going to have to replace your tires, you’re going to have to replace your brake pads, your windshields, you may need to get your seats reupholstered. All of those things are going to get more expensive because those parts have to be imported into the US. Yeah.

Lauren Goode: I did ask our colleague Aarian Marshall about this. She’s our transportation reporter at WIRED. She pointed out that some automakers like Ford are actually running promotions right now. And Stellantis, which is one of the Detroit Big three, is reportedly going to help its suppliers to eat some of the tariff costs, which would keep prices down for now. But she concurs that in the longer term, everyone’s pretty much in consensus. The prices for new cars is going to go up, and as prices go up in the car market, buyers are going to flee to the used car market, and the prices are going to go up there too, which is what we saw happen in Covid.

Michael Calore: Yeah, the used market’s going to get really competitive. Lauren, tell us about semiconductors. They’re in absolutely everything.

Lauren Goode: They are. They’re in your toothbrush right now, I’m sure.

Michael Calore: How many of them do we make in America?

Lauren Goode: Do you use an electric toothbrush?

Michael Calore: No, I use an acoustic toothbrush.

Lauren Goode: An acoustic toothbrush.

Katie Drummond: What’s an acoustic… Oh, I get it. Sorry, I’m Canadian, and there’s a gullibility that comes through.

Lauren Goode: And a politeness.

Katie Drummond: Quite often, if I may-

Michael Calore: “Sorry, I’m Canadian,” is probably the most true thing you’ve said.

Katie Drummond: Sorry.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. So semiconductors are a huge part of this because during Trump’s tariffs bonanza last week, it looked like semiconductors would be exempt, but there’s a lot of nuance to that exception, and our colleagues Will Knight and Zeyi Yang have been reporting on this, and it looks like chip makers could still suffer from this ’cause it’s… We’re going to get a little technical here for a moment. Semiconductors can refer to the materials that go into chips like silicon, for example, and sometimes it’s used to refer to the integrated circuits or ICs. I think that’s what a lot of people are referring to when they refer to chips. But in either case, semiconductors are very rarely shipped direct to the US. They’re usually packaged into phones or servers or GPUs first. It’s almost like if you said to the baking industry, we’re going to put an exemption on cocoa nibs, so don’t worry about extra costs added to those, but every time you import a chocolate chip cookie, there’s going to be a tariff on that. And that’s how they, the cocoa nibs arrive. So there’s a lot of nuance to this, and basically what Will and Zeyi’s reporting showed is that for a company like Nvidia, for example, even though it may seem, “Oh great, semiconductors exempt,” they import a lot of semiconductors from Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing, they might actually still get hit with tariffs because what they’re getting are more complete packaged products.

Michael Calore: I see.

Katie Drummond: That’s interesting. Give us five products that include semiconductors that people, maybe some that they would expect, maybe some that they wouldn’t.

Lauren Goode: I mean, your smartphone, we just spent several minutes talking about the iPhone. That’s certainly one of them.

Katie Drummond: So that’s a chocolate chip cookie?

Lauren Goode: That is a full cookie, right? You’re talking about something like a washing machine.

Katie Drummond: Ah yes, OK.

Lauren Goode: I mean truly, I made a joke earlier about the toothbrush, but if you have some kind of Bluetooth smart-connected toothbrush that sends information to an app, it could have a wafer somewhere in it. E-bikes. Basically. As we’ve moved more into IoT, which was a big buzzword about a decade ago and now just refers to everything is connected, you’re talking about literally all of those products.

Katie Drummond: This idea of sort of an exemption from tariffs is sort of like an inaccurate or an incomplete way of thinking about this, given that most likely that semiconductor is coming in as part of a toothbrush, as part of so many of these consumer goods that we take for granted doesn’t really count because it’s the chocolate chip cookie thing.

Lauren Goode: It depends on how things are packaged and also sort of how they’re tagged or categorized for customs. So one of the things that Zeyi and Will were looking into was how Nvidia actually categorizes its GPUs and whether or not those specific categories are exempt.

Katie Drummond: We’re really struggling to find a silver lining here, aren’t we? Sorry.

Michael Calore: Yes, we are. I’m sure there is one, but what we should do is take a break and then we’ll dig a little deeper into that. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. So we have thoroughly established that we are in red alert territory with regards to our economic situation in this country and globally. Let’s take a look at what people could do to weather the storm. So let’s share our advice for people. What do we think people should do?

Katie Drummond: Well, look, I wrote down in our production notes all of the typical stuff. Don’t look at your 401(k). Don’t panic. It’s all very real and scary. If you need to buy something and you can handle that cost, do it now. We all know that. I think, though, that if I could sort of say one thing to everyone listening: Stay informed about politics, make sure you’re registered to vote, make sure that you vote in the 2028 election. I mean, I see this as such a broad systemic issue. I mean, this is at the very, very, very, very, very end of the day, this is a politics story.

Michael Calore: That’s good advice.

Lauren Goode: Right.

Katie Drummond: Thanks.

Lauren Goode: Keep your eyes open.

Michael Calore: So what sorts of things should we be doing differently, aside from paying attention more and actually voting this time? What sorts of habits should we be changing?

Lauren Goode: Well, the comparisons to Covid as this kind of cataclysmic event and disruptive to our supply chains, they’ve been rattling through my brain. And I was thinking about how I actually did save a lot of money during Covid. I was really fortunate, I was employed., I was able to work from home. And also there were stimulus checks coming in and all of that, but I wasn’t buying all the top stuff I would typically buy. So I started thinking, should I take a similar approach this time around? And actually I’m doing something uncharacteristic, which is I have been buying the things that I’m not sure are going to be available to me, or I’m going to feel financially well enough to… But, for example-

Michael Calore: You’re hoarding?

Lauren Goode: Well, no, I’m not hoarding exactly, but I really need new pants. I’m not a person who ever buys pants. Who likes buying pants? Like who—

Michael Calore: Nobody.

Lauren Goode: It’s like the worst thing in the world. But this thing has happened now where I’m like, I actually do need a few new pairs of jeans and pants and stuff. So I went and bought some last weekend, particularly denim because it can be really expensive when made in the US. There’s probably some, I don’t know, some metaphor here for like don’t lose your pants or something during this time. But that’s just something I have been doing, and I have been stockpiling on some household goods while I see that … pet food.

Michael Calore: Yeah. So you are hoarding?

Lauren Goode: A little bit. A little bit. Yeah.

Katie Drummond: Just to confirm here, I’m the boss, so I’m calling it, Lauren is a hoarder, and Michael, what are you doing?

Lauren Goode: Yeah, tell us. Are you growing your own vegetables?

Michael Calore: No, I don’t have the space. Honestly, I’m saving. I’m saving. I’m sort of not spending the money on the things that I would normally spend them on and I’m being satisfied with what I already have. The thing that I would encourage people to do is look around your house. Look at all of the things that you have that are durable goods. Your blender, your toaster, your bicycle, your microwave, your television. Consider keeping it longer than you initially planned on keeping it, and if it breaks, consider repairing it. It’s actually pretty easy to repair most things, and if you feel not confident or you really don’t feel like you’re going to be able to get the thing open in order to be able to repair it properly, then find a repair person in your community who can come fix it for you. It used to be the case that if something broke, like if your blender broke, paying that person for their time and their labor and the parts would have cost almost as much money as just buying a new thing, and it was very easy to make the decision, I’m just going to buy the new thing. If the new thing suddenly costs 20 to 30 percent more than it used to, even with the increased cost of the parts that are going to be required, it’s probably still better to just have that thing repaired. So I think repair is going to be the big sort of life switch that I’m going to make in my house. Wear things out instead of breaking things in, it’s a motto that I try to live by and I believe that this is a point where we have to put that belief into action.

Lauren Goode: I would also add to that… By the way, my previous statement about pants and household goods, if you take medications, if you wear eyeglasses or contact lenses, anything sort of having to do with oral care, truly just things you sort of need to get by. If you are able to stockpile three to six months of those, I would. I would. We’re talking about-

Katie Drummond: Wow.

Lauren Goode: …pharmaceuticals.

Katie Drummond: Lauren-

Lauren Goode: These are things, you guys are laughing, but you’re all going to be coming to my house for your toothbrushes in a few months.

Katie Drummond: I’m going to be wearing my backup glasses in six months, point taken. But when you get home from work tonight, I do need you to send me a photo of the inside of all of your closets. I need to see your kitchen cabinets. I need to see under your bed. I am very concerned about what is going on in your home at this time.

Lauren Goode: All right, I’ll take that as an assignment.

Michael Calore: All right, well that feels like a great place to end this discussion. Thank you all for listening to this very uplifting episode of Uncanny Valley. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at [email protected]. Today’s show was produced by Kyana Moghadam. Amar Lal at Macrosound mixed this episode. Jake Lummus was our New York studio engineer. Paige Omek fact checked this episode. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Katie Drummond is WIRED’s global editorial director and our new cohost, and Chris Bannon is the head of Global Audio.