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Data Storage IT Technology

Micron To Impose Tariff-Related Surcharge on SSDs, Other Products (reuters.com) 157

Micron has informed US customers it will implement surcharges on memory modules and solid-state drives starting Wednesday to offset President Trump's new tariffs, according to Reuters. While semiconductors received exemptions in Trump's recent trade action, memory storage products didn't escape the new duties.

Micron, which manufactures primarily in Asian countries including China and Taiwan, had previously signaled during a March earnings call that tariff costs would be passed to customers.

Micron To Impose Tariff-Related Surcharge on SSDs, Other Products

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  • Weird (Score:5, Funny)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:06AM (#65289695) Homepage Journal

    I as assured that the countries sending stuff to the US would pay the tariffs, not Americans. Surely some mistake.

    • Re:Weird (Score:5, Interesting)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:09AM (#65289699) Journal

      Saw a post this morning where a company is including the tariff surcharge on the bill when you order from them. This way you know why it costs more.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That's an excellent idea.

        • You've personally called bullshit on cell phone companies and airlines doing this as an excuse to price gouge but now suddenly you're celebrating it. As always if you didn't have double standards you wouldn't have any standards at all.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I have never had any issue with costs being broken down. The issue is with BS charges, and charges not included in the headline price.

          • Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)

            by caseih ( 160668 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @12:57PM (#65290005)

            Sorry no. The issue with price gouging is when cell companies wrap up taxes along with unspecified "fees" into a broad category called "taxes and fees" and then when one complains they say, oh it's the taxes when if fact they've tacked on their own profit in the name of taxes. This is dishonest.

            If a company introduces a tariff surcharge that is clearly a percentage equal to the tariff I have no problem and applaud them for doing that.

          • Re:Weird (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:01PM (#65290021)
            Itemization makes junk fees easier to notice. I'm not sure how you twist that into praise for junk fees, it is clearly not.
          • The fact you love junk fees and want to companies to advertise prices that bear no relationship to reality because the alternative is COMMUNISM doesn't mean the rest of us do. I've never understood why your ilk loves people being ripped off.

            Tariffs are not a junk fee. They're not made up fees invented by the supplier to pretend their prices are lower than they actually are.

            • by rta ( 559125 )

              idk "Shadow of Eternity"'s position on junk fees, and i also agree that the tariffs will increase US consumer prices one way or another. (a la "Economics in One Lesson" - Hazlitt ), but i don't believe there's a strong difference between this itemization of the tariff surcharge and what tend to be considered "junk fees" on cell phone, rental care, hotel, and airline tickets.

              In the US, Sales Tax and Shipping are "expected" (and sometimes legislated) to be itemized (and that tax piece itself is quite politi

          • Re:Weird (Score:4, Funny)

            by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @04:22PM (#65290573) Journal

            Aww, does someone not want to have the clear bullshit gaslighting narrative sold by this administration to be put in unambiguously inarguable terms?

            When has anyone, ever, said "I don't want to see the line-item detail, just give me a total that can have any kind of bullshit rolled in" ?

            What a fantastically silly comment.

      • I deal with component suppliers like Digikey and Mouser daily. They have a search filter where you can exclude tariff products. For all intents and purposes that box should be labeled Trump Tax.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        That is the only sane way to do it. Tell people they are egtting less value for money because their government does what is effectively extreme taxation.

        • by rta ( 559125 )

          without taking a position on the tariffs for the purpose of this message, one man's "extreme taxation" (or extreme lack of taxation) is another's wise exercise of government power.

          With not too much of a modification to accounting software that businesses already use one could look at all mandated taxes, property, sales, business licenses, employee income, and multiply them by government spending and thus break out any government spending as its own thing:
          "highway and infrastructure fee"
          "unemployment insur

      • by Asgard ( 60200 )

        Which is fine so long as they advertise the full price. If they want to break it out in the price details, fine, but don't advertise the lower price up front then tack on a surcharge at the end of the order flow.

        • In the US, the "full price" never includes sales tax. The advertised price (in-store - where the location is well-known in advance - as well as online) doesn't include it. How would this be different in any substantial way?

      • Good. Everyone should do this. Layoffs should also indicate this. "You are being laid off due to tariff pressures."

    • Re:Weird (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kiviQr ( 3443687 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:57AM (#65289805)
      Are you also saying that Mexico did not pay for The Wall?
    • I was similarly told that these tariffs would cause manufacturers to build capacity to manufacture in the US. Are we now expected to believe that billion dollar semiconductor fabs don't spring up like dandelions over a weekend?

      How is this possible?!

    • That is what a guy in an RV covered in Trump and MAGA signs told me so he must've been right.

    • Mexicans paid for the wall, other countries will pay tarrifs... It is the most wonderful world... (Trump doing his dance)
    • by shilly ( 142940 )

      It's kind of you not to confuse the cousins with the actual Eye spelling...

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:19AM (#65289705)
    Right now. Today even. Trump doesn't have the right to do this except under emergency authority. There is obviously no emergency. The Senate could pass a resolution to revoke his emergency powers. Wouldn't even need a law and wouldn't need anyone from the house of representatives to vote for it.

    If you are a right winger and you own a small business or know someone who does it's about to go away. You're not going to survive the recession that's coming. And I know you know that because my feed is blowing up with small business owners freaking out right now.

    If you are a retiree here is where I remind you that your medicine is about to go up 25% in cost. Can you absorb that?

    Now is the time to talk to your state senator. Remind them they have primary elections and you have a long memory
    • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:28AM (#65289725) Homepage

      This will not happen until a critical mass of spineless GOP quislings make the calculation that supporting Trump is worse for their careers than opposing him.

      I have no idea when (or if) that will happen.

      • I'd phrase it a different way. Until more republicans grow a pair, they will continue to do nothing. Ironically the two R's with the biggest balls are women. Murkowski and Collins. Kind of a DEI problem for the R's.
      • Not in 2 years let alone 4.

        They don't have to prevent people as politically aware as you were me from voting. What they do instead is focus on casual voters. The sort of person that shows up on election Day and sees a long line and goes home. The sort of person who can't take a day off to drive down to the courthouse and answer a challenge to their signature or voter registration.

        As long as they can keep 3% to 5% of those people from voting they can win every election from here on out. Eventually th
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        They will just blame it on Democrats and idiots will believe them.

        It's already happened with Brexit, somehow it being an unmitigated disaster is the fault of people who didn't want to leave.

    • You know these politicians are taking calls from their corporate sponsors and mega donors. They now have the dilemma of holding the MAGA line or breaking rank and answering to the cash flow.

    • Right now. Today even. Trump doesn't have the right to do this except under emergency authority. There is obviously no emergency. The Senate could pass a resolution to revoke his emergency powers. Wouldn't even need a law and wouldn't need anyone from the house of representatives to vote for it. If you are a right winger and you own a small business or know someone who does it's about to go away. You're not going to survive the recession that's coming. And I know you know that because my feed is blowing up with small business owners freaking out right now. If you are a retiree here is where I remind you that your medicine is about to go up 25% in cost. Can you absorb that? Now is the time to talk to your state senator. Remind them they have primary elections and you have a long memory

      Sadly, the GOP is, thus far, towing the line on Trump's rhetoric that he's saving the country. Those emergency powers seem necessary to them, and no matter how much he decimates the population, or the business world, they seem determined to stay the course. I think, if they allow elections again, they're going to be in for a *VERY* rude awakening. They're getting roasted in town halls and absolutely destroyed by any public interaction. Even Fox News is sometimes questioning them now. You would think they'd

    • Do not panic.... it is too soon to start to neuter Trump. His supporters are still in denial. They have to feel the consequences, for a long time. Probably until they get desperate themselves. Then comes the time... This is going to be a long process.
    • So just continue to offshore all production, rely on imports, and add trillions to the debt? I guess it's not an emergency and everything will end well. China and Europe and the Democrat Party have our backs!
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The republicans have one massive problem with Trump: They selected him because they have a deep thrist for power, well knowing he was not a good choice. If they now admit that, it would probably cost them the next few elections. Of course, letting Trump continue his destructive rampage will do even more damage to them and the country, but that insight is so horrible and would need them to realize they are not good people, so most Republicans cannot do it. Hence this continues.

    • You are right, except for one minor quibble.

      There is obviously no emergency.

      The President is given the authority by Congress to make that decision, and Congress is the check on it.
      Being Congress hasn't checked it, and the President has decided it, there is a de facto and de jure emergency.
      You and I may not consider it an emergency- but we weren't elected to run the Legislative and Executive branches.

    • Trump doesn't have the right to do this except under emergency authority. There is obviously no emergency. The Senate could pass a resolution to revoke his emergency powers. Wouldn't even need a law and wouldn't need anyone from the house of representatives to vote for it.

      Congress could, but they, specifically the House, won't. Even if the Senate passes something the House can just ignore it. Usually there are deadlines for addressing a joint resolution, but the House circumvented that by changing their rule for anything that tries to end the national "emergency" Trump declared to ignore calendar days for those resolutions. From the articles below:

      Instead, tariff supporters opted out of the statutory 15-day and 3-day voting deadlines for a joint resolution by changing House rules to read,

      “Sec. 4 Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.”

      This language makes it much more difficult to subject the tariffs to a vote.

      H. RES. 211 [congress.gov]
      When Is a Calendar Day Not a Calendar Day? (And Why Does It Matter?) [ntu.org]
      House Quietly Ducks Trump Tariff Vote [wakeuptopolitics.com]

    • by Nugoo ( 1794744 )

      If you are a retiree here is where I remind you that your medicine is about to go up 25% in cost. Can you absorb that?

      Plus your 401k is crashing, and social security is about to get gutted. It's a pretty bad time to be retired (or working).

    • by karmawarrior ( 311177 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @02:05PM (#65290263) Journal

      A reminder, because I've been screaming this from the beginning and nobody wants to listen to it:

      The Republicans want this shit. They, not Trump, are driving the plane here. Trump did not write Project 2025, that was a Heritage Foundation project created by Heritage Foundation people. People tried to link it to Trump by claiming some (not even all!) authors were former Trump cabinet members, but they ignore the fact Trump's first cabinet was hand picked mostly by Heritage. They're authors because they're Heritage Foundation people, not because of any link to Trump. You think Trump has the brains to even read, let alone review or understand, nearly 1,000 pages of policy proposals?

      They are not going to back down. One or two, sure, because no political party marches in lock-step. But enough to make any difference? No. Because chances are your Republican senators and congress person actively support the tariffs.

      So no, you're not going to get it by simply handwaving and saying "Oh let's wait for the Good Republicans(tm) to step in", because there are no Good Republicans. You have as much likelihood of getting them to vote against Trump on this as you have on agreeing that maybe suicidal children should get psychiatric care even if the cause of their suicidal thoughts is something the Republicans have declared "Woke".

      I'm not saying "Don't send letters", but you need to do more than send damned letters at this point.

      • There is nothing so fickle as a politician: https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
      • It feels v bothersome that more people aren't on this train.

        It's obvious that everything on the agenda is to destroy the US. bring the economy and society to a screeching halt.
        So... why does it keep getting sanewashed? Agent Krasnov was recruited in 1987 by the KGB, so how is it not obvious that Trump is doing everything in his power to wreck the US, at the behest of Pooters? They don't have to speak in order to communicate. Trump already visited him and got his marching orders years ago.

        • by shilly ( 142940 )

          I have to concede that Putin's Russia has conducted the most effective asymmetric warfare in history, quasi-deniably enabling the US population to throw away its governance and prosperity not once, but twice. Only the eleventh largest economy in the world, fucked over completely by itself during the Cold War, and it has reached up and pulled the US down after it.

    • Trump doesn't have the right to do this except under emergency authority. There is obviously no emergency.

      There is now. Like many, many things Trump doesn't quite understand what "emergency authority" is: he seems to think it's the authority to create emergencies and to give credit where it is due he does seem to be exceptionally gifted in that area.

    • Right now. Today even. Trump doesn't have the right to do this except under emergency authority.

      Not even under emergency authority. The IEEPA gives the president considerable emergency powers... but it doesn't include tariffs. Lawsuits have been filed that point out that the law he's citing as the authority for his actions doesn't give him that power.

      There are other laws that do give him broad authority to set tariffs, but those laws require significant due process and a fairly detailed economic justification, which would take a lot of time. So Trump is just acting illegally rather than follow the

  • I've lost count of all the Donbots on LinkedIn insisting the tariffs would not be inflationary.

    They'll probably continue to deny it because there's no reasoning with them.

  • Lies (Score:5, Funny)

    by benjymouse ( 756774 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:31AM (#65289733)

    Tariffs are actually *tax cuts*. Karoline Leavitt told me so, very strongly.

    • "Tariffs are actually *tax cuts*. Karoline Leavitt told me so, very strongly."

      She also told us that 'tens of millions of Americans' died from fentanyl.

  • So a comoany in shangai puts a surcharge on your order.
    So you pay more.
    The order is shipped.
    Customs clearance asks you to pay customs tariff.
    So you in effect pay TWICE?
    Or does micron intend to settle the customs charges on your behalf?

    • You are misunderstanding this. Micron is both manufacturing SSDs in China and bringing them to the USA (and Europe) to sell them at a profit.

      The cost of Micron to put an SSD into a store in the USA will be higher because of the tarriffs. Instead of losing money on every sale, Micron decided to increase the prices to US customers so that after paying the tariffs, Micron has the same amount of profits.

      Now if China finds that there is some product that the USA really, really needs, then they could either
      • Micron isn't paying the tariff. You are - at customs.
        Micron makes an ssd and sells it at a price around the world. They could care less how much Trump jacks the tariff as they have the rest of the world to sell to. The tariff can be set to 200% and they'll care less as you'll be paying the tariff to customs.
        • Micron cares because they will sell a lot fewer SSDs at twice the price. More likely, they will just sell their product to other countries and the US will just have to do without (or if they really, really need an SSD, pay twice the price).

    • by Rinnon ( 1474161 )
      The company outside of the USA that is exporting their product into the USA is charged, and pays, the tariff. It is up to them whether they A. pay the tariff and absorb the hit to their profit margin; or B. Pay the tariff and pass along all or part of the cost of the tariff by raising their prices (sometimes broken out on the invoice as a surcharge for clarity, since the same price increase won't apply to customers outside the USA). As a consumer, you do not pay the tariff directly, but you do pay it indire
      • The company outside of the USA that is exporting their product into the USA is charged, and pays, the tariff.

        This is wrong, but also irrelevant. It is the company or the person importing a product into the USA who pays the tariff. So having an imported and tax paid product in their warehouse is now more expensive for the company in the USA.

        Of course if the manufacturer in China had tp pay, they would just add the tariff to their price. Same outcome. The cost for "imported and tax paid product" in your warehouse would be the same.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Some basic understanding of how "shopping" works (as opposed to "importing") would help. This is about Micron selling in the US...

    • So a comoany in shangai puts a surcharge on your order.

      No. A company in Boise, Idaho (Micron) puts a surcharge on your order.

      Customs clearance asks you to pay customs tariff.

      No. They ask the exporter to pay the customs tariff.

      So you in effect pay TWICE?

      No.

      Or does micron intend to settle the customs charges on your behalf?

      The cost will be contractually given to Micron by the exporter. Micron is then charging you to recoup that.

      • Ok thanks. They way it always was. Just don't know why they needed to announce anything. It was always going to be like this. Tesla cars will also going to be going up in price since I bet they don't make all those screens and bolts in minnesota or whatever but I doubt they'll be announcing anything.

        • Because formerly, the cost was integrated into the MSP.
          Due to how pricing/demand works, they're hoping that saying "This sudden large price increase is because of this line item we have no control over" will have less effect on demand than simply raising the MSP opaquely.
          • There may also be contracts where the seller can increase the price under certain circumstances and the contract remains valid.
    • It looks to be incredibly complex. The reg did a story https://blocksandfiles.com/202... [blocksandfiles.com] and it is bewildering. I can't imagine trying to do the bookkeeping on this. The key phrase from the article is "However, ANNEX II of the of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) applies to a presidential proclamation or trade-related modification that amends or supplements the HTSUS. Currently it says that semiconductors are exempt from tariffs." So chips are exempt, but SSD's are not chips, so th
  • You will be able to choose Tariffs at the point-of-sale: +10%, +25%, +50%.
    • by rta ( 559125 )

      It's a joke, but also not: Since a lot of fees and markups are specified as percentages rather than flat fees when you Tip at the POS you're also tipping on the tariff.

  • Trump is a genius! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @12:36PM (#65289921)

    He effectively raised taxes significantly, but sold it as "bring factories back" (which will not be happening or if it does they will be 99% automated). Now, if he had just raised taxes, he would have gotten eviscerated. This way, the MAGA-morons cannot say anything because they cheered for it and voted for it like the dumb fucks they are.

    • which will not be happening

      It will over a long enough period of time- but that's a period of time that's longer than Trump has to see it happen, and this bullshit will be immediately reversed upon his departure, because nobody really wants to see low-margin manufacturing come back to the US, because, as you put it:

      they will be 99% automated

      Because they must be. US factory workers simply make too much money.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        they will be 99% automated

        Because they must be. US factory workers simply make too much money.

        Indeed. And they could not actually make a reasonable living in the US if they did not.

      • by rta ( 559125 )

        Stipulating that tariffs raise prices an introduce inefficiency and thus by definition lower AGGREGATE wealth (though may effect distribution either positively or negatively),

        Some low level of tariff, say 5% or 10% to bias further toward domestic production i think would be "ok". (the number simply pulled out of my butt but "it seems small" ... much like that original income tax after WW1 "seemed small" (sigh))

        From an engineering POV i'm just kind of offended by things like the US growing cotton that is

      • Umm, I would think quite a few of us would like to see manufacturing come back to the USA. Even automated. Now this item only has to be shipped around the country as opposed to half way around the world. That's a nice reduction in green house gases and let's us ensure we can keep producing stuff, regardless of how the rest of the world is doing at any given moment.

        • Automated is fine. If you think we can produce capacitors in a monetarily sensible fashion- then good on ya, sir.
          As long as you think you can do it with a ~500% increase in costs- I say more power to you.

          However, if you want to burn environmental and labor protections to do it, then you can go ahead and get fucked.

          Now this item only has to be shipped around the country as opposed to half way around the world. That's a nice reduction in green house gases and let's us ensure we can keep producing stuff, regardless of how the rest of the world is doing at any given moment.

          This is one of those classical choices.

          low carbon footprint, environmentally clean, profit.
          Choose 2.

          I get the feeling you're one of those people who would watch an environmental catastroph

    • He effectively raised taxes significantly, but sold it as "bring factories back" (which will not be happening or if it does they will be 99% automated).

      I think, long term, manufacturing will come back to the states. Along with slave wages, a complete lack of environmental protections, and the concept of entire families, all living generations, living in what used to be considered single family (parents and offspring of one generation) homes. The vision here is to push the working class back down into the dirt so the owner class can rise further above them. Automation will play a part, I'm certain, but I don't know that they can automate everything as quick

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        With a lasting ecconomic collapse, sure. Or the country will burn. Both options are not applealing.

        • With a lasting ecconomic collapse, sure. Or the country will burn. Both options are not applealing.

          Let's show some of that American optimism. We could do both economic collapse *AND* burn the country. We're extremely inventive when it comes to destruction.

      • > a complete lack of environmental protections

        Don't worry, the orange idiot just signed more shit making coal the preferred power source "because it's the best"...

    • but sold it as "bring factories back" (which will not be happening or if it does they will be 99% automated).

      The first one. "Not be happening" He did after all just scrap a major government program designed to promote small / medium manufacturing capability in America, and last month was on the warpath against the CHIPS act which has resulted in some companies already pausing their plans to expand manufacturing citing "political uncertainty".

      Forget manufacturing, right now it would be foolish to invest anything in the USA. When your ROI equation can't be solved because of an insane variable you can't make an inves

    • ... "bring factories back" ...

      The easy answer is, this is more Trump thuggery: It's another demand for approval and money. Plus, it took SignalGate out of the news.

      Someone gave me an alternative answer: Trump wants to crash the US dollar. Then, everything in the USA will be cheap and countries WILL build their factories in the USA. (Just like China, no worker's rights, no environmental protection, no heritage protection, no safety rules.) The damage that US tariffs and retaliatory tariffs will do to the USA, doesn't interest Tru

  • by newslash.formatblows ( 2011678 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @12:51PM (#65289985)
    This has spurred my neighbor to start construction on a Mom-and-Pop 5 nm fab! Now I don't know how long it will take to get that up and running, but I can't imagine it would be more than a few weeks. We're bringing factories home!
    • A Mom and Pop 20 nm fab wouldn't be too bad. It would have a relatively high yield rate, and would be more than enough for all but core CPU, GPU, and AI stuff. A fab like this would be able to handle all the ECUs and MCUs that are needed, so we don't see a 25% price hike on cars due to "lack of chips". To boot, going to older technologies likely means less environmentally offensive processes. The less we need to throw on silicon on the less than 5nm fabs, the better.

    • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @03:06PM (#65290427)

      You're joking, but he 5-nanometer (nm) semiconductor fabrication machines produced in the Netherlands are affected by both U.S. tariffs and Dutch export controls.

      U.S. Tariffs:

      In April 2025, the U.S. imposed a 20% tariff on imports from the European Union, which includes advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment from Dutch companies like ASML. This tariff increases the cost for U.S. semiconductor manufacturers purchasing these machines.

      Dutch Export Controls:

      As of April 1, 2025, the Dutch government expanded its export controls to include more advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, such as certain deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines necessary for 5 nm chip production. Exporting these machines now requires a license, potentially limiting their availability to international customers, including those in the U.S.

      These measures collectively impact the accessibility and cost of 5 nm fabrication equipment for U.S. manufacturers.

  • The USA currently has lots of really good paying jobs in services. I'm not sure why voters in the USA want to have more jobs sewing shirts or assembling electronics. US unemployment is 4%. I'm not sure where the USA will get lots of people to work for $10 a day especially if they are deporting all the Mexicans.

    The US trade deficit is caused by Americans collectively consuming more than the produce. If Trump wants the USA to have a trade surplus then he can just cut the US consumption. The US has a
  • https://archive.is/20250407174... [archive.is]

    In a video message shared Monday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said that his country would not retaliate against Trump’s tariffs, instead proposing negotiations based off a starting point of “zero tariffs” between Taiwan and the United States.

    “Like the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, negotiations on tariffs can start from Taiwan-US bilateral zero-tariff treatment,” Lai said.

  • Can't believe Congressional Republicans are going along with this. Because I guarantee future Democrats will realize they can use these tariffs to fund social welfare programs. And once that happens, there is no going back (for better or worse). American consumerism as we know it is toast.

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