Gilles Sabrie / "The New York Times" -REDUX-REA
FactualFaced with threats from Donald Trump to tax more and more products imported from China and therefore all electronic and computer equipment, the big digital companies have undertaken to reorganize their global production chain.
Will tax? Will not tax? Much more than a simple arm wrestling, it is a true cold war which settles between the United States and China. The challenge ? Officially, the United States invokes its largely negative trade balance with China. In 2018, Americans exported less than 120 billion dollars (107 billion euros) to this country while their imports from China reached 540 billion dollars including 130 billion televisions, computers and other smartphones. But more than a rebalancing, America seeks above all to protect its leadership in the technology sector, undermined by the rise of China. It does not hide its ambition to become a major player in high-tech and for that to go up in the value chain! Even if it means dismantling an industrial organization unique in history that has accompanied the information technology revolution.
In its "Made in China 2025" plan, launched in 2015, the Middle Kingdom set itself the goal of holding 80% of its domestic market and 40% of the global digital technology market. As the main assembler of components, whether it produces or imports, China is responsible for almost half of the world's exports of finished electronic products. So the entire high tech global value chain, arguably the most globalized industry in the world, is threatened today by the tax war that started almost two years ago. It affects American and Chinese giants, but also all companies in the sector, suppliers and subcontractors who produce a little bit in China, whatever their nationality.
Apple and its flagship iPhone illustrate the level of international nesting in the technology value chain. In an article on the "tech trade war," the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) details the geographic origin of the added value of an iPhone. Assembled in China, this smartphone arrives in the United States with a label "Assembled in China". However, the real added value of China in this product is only 4% (battery, assembly). It would approach 20% if we consider the components whose provenance is not identified but remains predominantly Chinese.
