from Hacker News

Framework temporarily pausing some laptop sales in the US due to tariffs

by leotravis10 on 4/8/25, 12:16 AM with 44 comments

  • by wongarsu on 4/8/25, 1:08 AM

    They have their entire production in Taiwan, which probably feels like a good move right now. If they did final assembly in the US, US tariffs would be better, but selling outside the US would mean importing parts into the US and exporting computers outside, paying tradewar-level tariffs both ways. The way they are set up now they get hit harder on US imports but the rest of their customers aren't affected at all.

  • by gnabgib on 4/8/25, 12:25 AM

    Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43616447 (50 points)

    This fractured landscape isn't better - same message on x:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43616389 (10 points)

  • by JLO64 on 4/8/25, 1:16 AM

    I really hope this won’t affect International/European pricing for their laptops as I was planning on getting my GF (who lives in Poland) a Framework 12.

    Additionally, I was thinking about purchasing a Framework Desktop to use as a server for my business. (I’d like to use LLMs but due to the sensitive nature of my customer’s data I would strongly prefer doing so locally.) I guess I’d have to send it to my GF and then smuggle it into the US in my carry on.

  • by bhouston on 4/8/25, 1:02 AM

    If building hardware products wasn't hard enough. This could kill a lot of companies pretty quickly. If you have massive inventory in China or you've invested in a factory to build things at scale and now your US margins are underwater, I'm not sure what you do.

    Nintendo is facing the same thing. Nintendo had tried to avoid Trump's first term tariffs in 2019 by spending a ton of money moving Switch production to Vietnam only for Vietnam to get hit massive 46% tariffs this week:

    https://www.designdevelopmenttoday.com/industries/manufactur...

  • by noisy_boy on 4/8/25, 1:22 AM

    They had an assembly centre in Taiwan (or Thailand), it could have been easier shipping to many Asian markets they don't e.g. Singapore which has a affluent techy consumer base or Thailand/Malaysia etc.

  • by mixmastamyk on 4/8/25, 1:40 AM

    Why not raise their prices?