VIDEO: Would you buy an iPhone or sneakers made by these guys?

President Trump has said that the point of all these tariffs on foreign-made goods is to not only address unfairness in the global trading system, but to bring jobs and factories back to America. Soon (he says) there will be lots of good jobs in factories like those to be found in places like Xinjiang province, in the Worker's Paradise that is China.

What would winning the trade war with China look like? Something like this, perhaps?

 

Yes, that's Chinese Communist propaganda, but it has got a lot of people thinking... even the Donald, who yesterday announced that smartphones and computers will be exempt from reciprocal tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports. 

The apparent flip-flop comes after concerns from Amerian tech companies that the price of such gadgets could skyrocket, because many of them are made in China or use Chinese-made parts. The exemptions also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards. 

Some estimates suggested iPhone prices and other electronic goods in America would have gone up three times if the costs of the tariffs had been passed on to consumers. The US of A is a major market for iPhones, while Apple accounted for more than half of its smartphones sales last year. As much as 80% of Apple's iPhones intended for sale in America are made in China, with the remaining 20% made in India. 

Along with fellow smartphone giants such as Samsung, Apple has been trying to diversify its supply chains to avoid over-reliance on China in recent years. India and Vietnam emerged as frontrunners for additional manufacturing hubs. As tariffs took effect, Apple reportedly looked to speed up and increase its production of India-produced devices in recent days. 

President Trump had planned a host of steep tariffs on countries around the world set to go into effect this week. But on Wednesday, he quickly reversed course, announcing that he would implement a 90-day pause for countries hit by higher US tariffs - except China - whose tariffs he raised to 145%.

Trump said the Chinese tariff increase was because of the country's readiness to retaliate with its own 84% levy on US goods. In a dramatic change of policy, Trump said all countries that had not retaliated against US tariffs would receive a reprieve – and only face a blanket US tariff of 10% – until July. The White House then said the move was a negotiating tactic to extract more favourable trade terms from other countries.

Says Walt (pulling at the outside corners of his eyes to make them look kinda slanty), rotsa ruck with that.

NO! DON'T microwave your iPhone!

Walt hates to be the one to break the news to you, but not everything you read on the Internet is true. Not even the ads. Especially the ads! Take this example.

Writing on the "Mashable" website, beautiful Neha Prakash tells us that this authentic-looking ad is actually a hoax. The perps are some of the merry pranksters who hang out at 4chan, "a simple image-based bulletin board" where anyone can post comments and share images. That's the website where the stolen images of more than 100 nude celebrities (including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton) were first widely shared.

On Wednesday, some of the 4chan sleuths banded together to create this slick-looking ad, suggesting that Apple's new operating system, iOS8, was so advanced that you could "wave charge your device by placing it within a household microwave for a minute and a half." It also warns users not to "wave-charge" for more than 300 seconds.

The ad has been widely circulated on Twitter and Reddit, and, believe it or not, there are some people dumb enough to bite. Here's proof, as seen on Twitter.

Of course, this photo could be a fake. And that's the lesson to take away from today's Warning From Walt!

Note from Ed.: Walt doesn't mean you should disbelieve everything you see everywhere on the Net. You can believe what you see and read here on WWW. Well... mostly... most of the time.

"Help! I'm a prisoner in a Chinese fortune cookie factory!"

Just before the end of the year, The Oregonian ran an unusual story from China. Lots of strange things happen in China, but here we learn not to let our amusement with the ways of the Mysterious East cloud our perception of the realities of life under China's repressive Communist régime.

You've heard the old joke... Someone opens a fortune cookie at the end of a delicious meal in a Chinese restaurant and reads, "What you just ate wasn't chicken." Well, something like this happened to Julie Keith, of Portland OR, when she opened a Halloween graveyard kit she'd bought at Kmart over a year ago.

Hidden inside was a handwritten note asking whoever might find it to help the prisoners who made the decorations in a labour camp in Shenyang, in northeastern China. The experience would be like finding a message scrawled on the back of your licence plate begging for justice for those languishing in a North American prison.

The anonymous writer asks whoever finds his note to "please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization." He goes on to describe the miserable working conditions at the camp, including beatings and other kinds of torture. Inmates are made to work seven days a week, for which they get 10 RMB per day. That's about US$1.65.

The Oregonian has contacted the US customs and immigration authorities. There may not be much they can do to the Chinese, but American law prohibits importation of items made by forced labour, so K-Mmart and its parent Sears could be liable. K-Mart says it will investigate and could -- not "will", but "could" -- end their business relationship with the factory if they can confirm the allegations in the message.

Of course K-Mart is only one of many Western companies taking of cheap Chinese labour. Foxconn, which manufactures Apple products -- including the iPad on which you may be reading this -- has received considerable negative publicity over working conditions at its huge campus in Walt's old stomping ground of Shenzhen. Morale is so bad there that Foxonn has mounted wire mesh nets around the outside of its buildings to catch employees who defenestrate themselves. [Not a joke. See article in the year-end issue of The Economist. Ed.]

And China is not the only offender. Sweat-shop conditions or worse can be found in factories all over southeast Asia -- Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, to name only three. Next time you're patronizing the Bentonville Monster or the T-Store or, errr, just about any mass merchandiser, have a look to see where the jeans or coffee maker or whatever you're looking for is made. Buy local if you can!