00:00 Speaker A
According to Bloomberg, the consumer tech giant is making Vietnam the hub for manufacturing its upcoming line of smart home devices as it works to reduce its dependence on China. Uh, Apple is also partnering with Chinese tech firm BYD for final assembly, testing and packaging of the new products. This coming as the US and China remain locked in tense trade negotiations, with fresh uncertainty around tariffs and supply chains. But the shift to Vietnam won’t completely alleviate tariff headaches for Apple. Products shipped from the country still face a 20% levy under the latest tariffs. So, so with me our roundtable for today, David, Brooke, and Inez. And David, you were just saying how Apple has been diversifying its supply chain away from China. But, I mean, does this just sort of pass around the risk considering Vietnam still has those tariffs?
00:50 David
I think so, but I think it’s dealing with a government and an economy that uh, is more willing to uh negotiate, right? The Chinese are going to hold a hard line because they want to show that power. Uh, they were referencing different types of powerful animals that they want to uh, you know, emulate. And so ultimately it’s less of I think, um, uh, you know, a kind of a political posturing that we’re dealing with. And the more or the more countries that we can kind of get these supply chains reoriented to, really coming out of COVID, right? This is where this all started. Uh the better off the global economy is, really. Um, you know, I think that if we can have more diversification, just like always, that’s a positive thing. Of course, I’m going to say that.
01:38 Speaker A
And Inez, I mean, this also just underscores how a lot of these big tech companies are exposed to these geopolitical tensions. How are you viewing that across not only Apple stock, but the chip space at large?
01:52 Inez
Um well, look, I mean, the tariff situation is still a wild card particularly when it comes to China. And you have UBS that recently came out with comment basically saying that they see that the risk is some near-term two-way volatility, especially when it comes to chip and with tech. But they’re still saying that basically cooler heads would they believe will ultimately prevail and they’re saying any dip you see is a way to allocate into the stock market.