Katie Drummond: Howard Lutnicka’s very invigorating promise. I can’t wait to talk about if this is possible.
Michael Heat: Certainly not in a low period.
Lauren Goode: Was it the same moment when he spoke about the Millions Army with diminutive screws?
Katie Drummond: Oh, yes. Compact diminutive screws? Compact diminutive screws? Yes.
Lauren Goode: It was the one on CBS face to the nation, I think we all saw it.
Howard Lutnick [Archival audio]: The army of millions and millions of people is screwed in diminutive, diminutive screws to make iPhones. These kinds of things will come to America.
Michael Heat: So Elon tweeted because of it. Tim Cook probably also sat on Twitter and jumping tweets, calling various members of the White House advisory staff, right?
Lauren Goode: Tim Cook said nothing in public.
Katie Drummond: Let’s give this man some recognition. He is too sharp to do this. Apple is as sharp as they appear, I expect that I will not hear anything about them. To the Lauren point earlier, they certainly act behind the scenes, but I would expect that they want it to be from a public point of view of optics, without comment, glossy sailing and so on.
Lauren Goode: Katie, you mentioned during the inauguration when we saw this photo of the presidents of technologies who were present, I think your attention was Tim Cook, it looks like it wants to vomit?
Katie Drummond: He was not exactly the ray of enthusiasm, like some of his colleagues, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and so on. He looked like someone was dying, or maybe it was his company based on what was happening now,
Michael Heat: Here is the hope for the future. Let’s talk about one of the other people in this photo, Mr. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO. Now Amazon is not a hardware company like Apple, but it deals with strenuous goods. So what do tariffs for Amazon and its activities mean?
Lauren Goode: Well, we should also notice, and our colleague, Zeyi Yang, also includes in Wired, there is something known as a de minimis dismissal for e-commerce companies sending goods from China, and part of this up-to-date tariff package actually removes this exemption, which is not good for e-commerce companies.
Michael Heat: Is it if your goods cost less than USD 800?
Lauren Goode: I believe yes, yes.
Michael Heat: You don’t have to pay for a high import tax.
Lauren Goode: Yes. Exactly.
Katie Drummond: This one is slightly less clear to me and I am glad that I can argue about it or say that I am wrong. This seems less tragic for Amazon than for Elons of the world and his companies as well as apples and Tim Cooks. I mean relying Amazon on Chinese goods sold on its platform, I think it’s at least 50 percent. This is over 50 percent of what Amazon sells. But taking into account Lauren what you just said that these other Chinese trading giants will be very firmly hit by these tariffs, in some respects, which seems to be the field for Amazon. And then, of course, Michael, for your sense, are not a hardware company. Of course, they are a huge commercial company, but also have Amazon Web Services services, they have different aspects for their company, which seem much more insulated than these types of direct effects of tariffs. I mean how it is sitting with you?