So American and Asian consumers can pay the same price for the same device that can do more, but to protect me, the European, my device must do less?
It is I the customer who will pay the tariffs (they are always paid by the importer) - the manufacturer gets the same amount per unit.
All countries have tariffs. All tariff systems classify goods in some way. On top of the fact that this is by necessity not ever absolutely accurate even initially, these classifications also lag technological development and consumer behaviour.
If there is one thing the EU has absolutely achieved it is to massively reduce and harmonize tariffs and trade rules, and make the rules less susceptible to the whims of political favor and lobbying of local industry.
>> If there is one thing the EU has absolutely achieved it is to massively reduce and harmonize tariffs and trade rules, and make the rules less susceptible to the whims of political favor and lobbying of local industry.
To a (considerable) extent yes. But it appears to be going backwards - from 2021 online shops have had to know and apply VAT for a product to the buyers country, not the country in which they are based, and thresholds for charging and submitting this VAT were eliminated. Basically handing over more online retail to the likes of Amazon.
Different products have different VAT rates in each country, the only thing that can't be discriminated on is the (EU) country of origin. This is still absolutely susceptible to the whims of political favour and local industry lobbying. A recent example from Finland: https://yle.fi/a/74-20087643
[Admittedly I'm unlikely to be buying chocolate and crisps online from Germany, but if I were a German seller needs to charge the correct rate of VAT for each, which will likely be different from Germany and every other EU country]
Yeah, once upon a time I lived in the mountains in Canada and bought a lot of stuff from the US because at the time the Canadian dollar was more or less at par and far cheaper down in the US. I randomly came across the fact that mountaineering equipment was tariffed at 0% because back in like 1920 Canada, like many countries, thought being the first to climb whatever mountain would bring us national glory. Anyways, I would drive down Blain, WA to a parcel shop and collect the stuff I bought online and had shipped there, drive back up and claim it was all "mountaineering" equipment. Nope, those ain't ski boots, they're mountaineering boots, and etc.
I'd still have to pay tax on it, though. IIRC there wasn't any personal exemption amount if you'd left Canada for under 24 hours, unlike they have now. Sometimes they'd just wave you through even when trying to declare something, which was always a nice little bonus savings.
> but to protect me, the European, my device must do less?
No, I think it's to protect the European producer of devices that can do more from being out-competed by imports.
Tariffs aren't to protect you. They are to protect domestic industry.
https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/eu-to-hit-some-di...
It was just a outdated import fee from a time when it made sense to protect the domestic industry - due to technological developments the import duty was removed. In fact it was removed almost 10 years ago.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-00127...