The problem with buying American or British is that so many great products of both lands are manufactured in China. US president Donald Trump, a weathercock spinning in electoral breezes, has delayed new tariffs on some Chinese-made goods. The respite is more modest than it first appears for Apple and its Asian manufacturing partner Hon Hai.
The reprieve is meant to inspire Yuletide jollity in August by exempting some items Americans buy as Christmas gifts, smartphones and laptops among them. Prices are already steep for Apple’s iPhones and MacBooks, many of them assembled in Shenzhen by Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn. A 10 per cent import tariff will now not be implemented until mid-December.
Investors should focus on products that have received no stay of execution. Accessories for the iPhone, including AirPods, and Apple Watches, will be hit by the 10 per cent levy in about a fortnight. These products, of little account a few years ago, now generate decent sales. Sales of the iPhone fell to less than half of total revenue in the latest quarter, the first time in seven years. Revenues from accessories grew almost 50 per cent.