Your Next Kindle Could be Made in Vietnam
Trump’s trade war isn’t just killing American jobs and costing you more in the pocketbook; it’s also killing jobs in other countries as well.
The Nikkei reports that Amazon and many other tech companies are looking at shifting their manufacturing from mainland China to other countries in response to the tariffs imposed by Trump.
Dell and HP, two of the 3 largest PC makers, are planning to relocate up to 30% of their laptop production out of the country. Amazon, MS, Google, and Nintendo are also evaluating the benefits of moving some of their manufacturing out of China.
The tech companies' plans have not changed despite the truce that was struck last weekend between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump at the G20 summit in Osaka. Multiple sources told the Nikkei that the situation was still too unstable, while rising costs in China were also prompting manufacturers to examine alternatives.
There’s no word yet on where Amazon’s consumer electronics will end up, but Amazon’s manufacturing partner Foxconn has already moved some of its servers production out of China to avoid tariffs. It’s now making US-bound servers in Mexico, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. Other servers makers have followed suit. "After the tariffs on Chinese goods … took effect on Sept. 24, we started to manufacture and ship servers outside of China from October," said an executive of a Taiwanese server manufacturer.
The latest rumors suggest Amazon is considering shifting production of the Echo smart speakers, Kindle ereader, and Kindle Fire tablet to Vietnam.
While we don’t know how this will impact Amazon’s release schedule or quality of its electronics, several of Amazon’s smaller competitors will be severely impacted. China-based Boyue is going to see the price of its hardware increase due to tariffs, while Taiwan-based Netronix is going to have to shift more of its production back to its home island.