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How the tech world is responding to tariff chaos
On The Vergecast: the ever-changing price of everything, Meta’s AI cheating, the TikTok ban, and Brendan Carr.
On The Vergecast: the ever-changing price of everything, Meta’s AI cheating, the TikTok ban, and Brendan Carr.
is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
It’s important to keep saying that we still don’t know much about what’s going on with the Trump administration’s tariff policy. They’re on again, they’re off again. They’re a negotiating tactic! They’re a permanent policy don’t even ask! With China, the numbers are quickly becoming so large they’re basically pretend, and with many other countries the number whipsaws back and forth on a practically daily basis.
That is the chaos tech companies large and small are having to grapple with right now. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes talk about how they’re coping. (After a brief diversion in party speaker territory.) Huge corporations like Nintendo are delaying pre-orders and reassessing prices; smaller companies like Framework are stopping and starting and re-pricing all in the span of a few hours; startups like Tuneshine and Arduboy are wondering how they’re going to stay in business. It’s a mess out there, and it’s going to change the way you pay for things, and even change the things themselves.
After the tariff talk, the hosts pivot to another thoroughly chaotic industry: AI. This week, Meta got caught gaming AI benchmarks, and we’re all totally shocked by that. We have some great new reporting on how bad things are in Siri-land, some new details on the Altman-Ive hardware project, and Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke causing a stir online with some new AI-first company policy.
Finally, in the lightning round, we lead with another edition of America’s favorite (or maybe second-favorite, jury’s still out) podcast within a podcast: Brendan Carr is a Dummy. (Once you see the pin he’s wearing, you’ll understand why we talked about it for so long.) We also talk a bit about the TikTok ban, which both is and isn’t still happening, before ending with some talk of Instagram’s long-awaited iPad app and the happily excellent Google Pixel 9A.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on tariffs:
- Sony adds three new speakers to bass-boosted ULT Power Sound lineup
- Sony seemingly bakes tariff penalty into its new US TV pricing
- Trump’s tariffs are officially in effect, including 104 percent on China
- Trump triples tariffs on low value packages from China and Hong Kong
- China calls US a ‘joke’ as it raises tariff for final time
- Trump announces a ‘90-day pause’ on tariffs outside of China
- Trump believes iPhones can be made in the US, says White House
- From The New York Times: A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won’t Be ‘Assembled in U.S.A.’
- Apple quickly shipped 600 tons of iPhones to ‘beat’ the new tariffs
- Some Shein and Temu ‘haul video’ creators are stocking up
- Framework raised prices and then un-raised them an hour later because of Trump
- Price hikes, idled factories, layoffs: how car companies are responding to Trump’s tariffs
- China will show fewer US films in response to tariffs
- Trump’s new tariffs leave small creators scrambling
- Arduboy creator says his tiny Game Boy won’t survive Trump’s tariff
- Trump’s latest tariffs may set the smart home industry back
- Nintendo boss on Switch 2 and tariffs: ‘we are actively assessing what the impact may be’
And in AI news:
- Meta gets caught gaming AI benchmarks with Llama 4
- From The Information: How Apple Fumbled Siri’s AI Makeover
- Shopify CEO says no new hires without proof AI can’t do the job
- Samsung is finally releasing Ballie, its rolling home robot
- Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s AI project could involve a screenless device.
- Major publishers call on the US government to ‘Stop AI Theft’
And in the lightning round:
- From Dean Blundell: Trump Is Now Mandating His Cabinet/Loyalist Wear “Trump Golden Bust” Pins
- From Ars Technica: The speech police: Chairman Brendan Carr and the FCC’s news distortion policy
- From Variety: FCC Commissioner Slams Trump’s Bid to ‘Censor and Control’ News Media
- Trump delays TikTok ban again
- Trump’s TikTok delay is ‘against the law’ top Senate Intelligence Democrat says
- Instagram might finally release an iPad app
- Google Pixel 9A review: a midrange phone done right
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