{"id":128784,"date":"2025-09-08T23:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T23:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128784\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T23:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T23:00:11","slug":"trumps-policies-are-shutting-out-americans-from-the-coolest-new-gadgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128784\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s Policies Are Shutting Out Americans From the Coolest New Gadgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tech companies big and small now struggle to tantalize you with tech without telling you how much it will cost, or\u2014hell\u2014whether you can even buy it. The still-ongoing IFA 2025 tech conference<\/a> in Berlin proved how merely shipping tech to the U.S. is more tenuous than at any time in the last few decades. From what I saw and heard both on the floor and off, it became clear that the era of plentiful, affordable, and cool shit will melt away in favor of an epoch of dull and ever-more expensive tech.<\/p>\n

IFA\u2019s timing lands early in September for tech companies to have the chance to promote their products before the holiday rush. It\u2019s a big conference for European- and Asian-based companies, especially those that focus on smart home tech. For us journalists, IFA is also an opportunity to dive into the weird and wacky products that may or may not float to the U.S. from across the pond.<\/p>\n

This year, the annual conference took a different tenor. IFA came months after U.S. tariffs had been causing havoc<\/a> with pricing on existing products. Future devices won\u2019t just be more expensive; more and more companies indicated they were holding off shipping to the U.S. or were writing off Uncle Sam altogether until things change. It was as if every public relations professional\u2019s toothy smile hid a single word\u2014tariff\u2014whispered but never fully uttered through their teeth.<\/p>\n

U.S. policies are leaving us guessing on price and availability \"TclThe TCL QM9K TV is a month away from launch, and still the company did not want to tell us its price. \u00a9 Kyle Barr \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Some international tech giants bearing truly unique products are being barred completely from the States. DJI, the company most known for making drones, has found itself soft-banned<\/a> from importing gear to the U.S. There\u2019s a long and fraught history with DJI and the U.S. market, but the end result is Americans locked out of an entire line of products. At IFA, DJI had its new Osmo 360<\/a> camera proudly displayed. You can go to the DJI store page<\/a> now, and it currently says \u201cOut of Stock\u201d if you\u2019re checking in from the U.S. DJI has in-store availability slated for the rest of this year, but people in the U.S. won\u2019t be able to easily buy it. At least Insta360 and its Antigravity A1 360-degree camera drone<\/a> are still getting a U.S. launch.<\/p>\n

Some tech companies have managed to cajole President Donald \u201cI\u2019m not a dictator\u201d Trump by heaping praise<\/a> and gaudy 24K gold statues<\/a> on the capricious commander in chief. Those companies that haven\u2019t kissed the ring<\/a> find themselves on the outside. At IFA, we checked out several new products from Roborock, including a new robo lawnmower and a washing machine\/dryer combo with a doggy door for a robovac<\/a>. Neither are coming to the U.S. in the immediate future, the company told us. The U.S. has easily the highest demand for lawnmowers in the world.<\/p>\n

\"DjiYou can\u2019t buy the DJI Osmo 360 camera in the U.S., as much as you may want to. \u00a9 Kyle Barr \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Over and over again, I asked companies about U.S. pricing and availability, and was told they didn\u2019t have those details available, at least not yet. Companies like Anker, Mova, and Dreame crafted their own blend of robotic suits for robovacs to help them climb stairs<\/a>. The Eufy MarsWalker,<\/a> Dreame CyberX, and Mova Zeus 60 should be around sometime next year. No, of course, there\u2019s no suggested price. Want more wacky gadgets? Too bad. SwitchBot\u2019s Kata Friends<\/a>, an AI-powered family \u201cpet\u201d that looks like a teddy bear filled with several sensors, still doesn\u2019t have a price or availability for U.S. consumers. The company simply wouldn\u2019t suggest when its products will ever come to the U.S.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say it was the case with all tech on the show floor. There are plenty of new gadgets, like these long-lasting Bose headphones, the <\/a>updated Withings ScanWatch 2, <\/a>Anker\u2019s Prime power banks<\/a>, and the massive Nebula X1 Pro<\/a> will come to the U.S. Companies are more hesitant than ever to even mention prices. TCL\u2019s new QM9K TV<\/a> should be available \u201clater this month,\u201d but the company refused to provide an idea about price, which is perhaps the most important element of a renowned budget TV brand.<\/p>\n

The PC market looked dire at IFA 2025 \"LenovoThe new Legion Go 2 is $350 more expensive than the starting price of the original Legion Go. \u00a9 Kyle Barr \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Unlike with CES, companies don\u2019t have to come to IFA if they hope to make a splash. It\u2019s not a sure sign there are internal or external struggles. But in conversations with companies, it\u2019s clear the only answer they have to Trump\u2019s tariffs is to delay release or obfuscate pricing. Asus launched several laptops at IFA 2024. The company told Gizmodo it was skipping the 2025 show. That wasn\u2019t entirely true, though. Asus\u2019 gaming-centric brand\u2014Republic of Gamers\u2014took up a corner booth space in the back of one of the halls with two Asus ROG Xbox Ally X handhelds<\/a> on display. The company still refused to say how much it would cost. There\u2019s a reason customers should be concerned.<\/p>\n

Handhelds are one of the fastest-growing and most innovative markets for both gaming and PCs. At IFA, one company promised a handheld-laptop hybrid<\/a> with a stereoscopic 3D display akin to the Nintendo 3DS. While we saw more handhelds at CES 2025<\/a>, the situation post-tariffs is far more tenuous. Lenovo\u2019s Legion Go 2<\/a> was all set to hit a home run with its OLED display. Then we saw the price. Lenovo said the handheld PC would start at $1,050. Things are worse when you look at the true costs. A version of the handheld with the higher-end processor, the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme, starts at $1,350. The original Legion Go demanded $700 at launch late in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"AcerWant to know how much the Acer Swift 16 Air will cost? So do we. \u00a9 Kyle Barr \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Few people want to spend over $1,000 for a device with only marginal performance gains. It does not bode well for the Xbox Ally X, which contains the same Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip. We were also hoping to see Acer finally drop details on its Nitro Blaze 7<\/a> and Nitro Blaze 11<\/a> handhelds. While the handheld has already been on sale in various countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, Acer told me it had \u201cno updates for U.S. on handhelds.\u201d Acer was also unwilling to share any pricing for its upcoming laptops, like the ultra-light Swift 16 Air<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tech companies may be taking a wait-and-see strategy, but there\u2019s no sign Trump will end his love affair with import taxes, at least for those U.S. firms unwilling to give up a stake in their company\u2014like Intel has<\/a>\u2014or go Nvidia\u2019s route and be stuck agreeing to ever-more unfavorable demands. Trump\u2019s fascistic tendencies naturally lean on the industry, but those who can\u2019t or (increasingly rarely) won\u2019t give themselves to Trump will simply have to avoid the U.S. and its many gadget-hungry consumers. Nobody knows how this will all shake out, but U.S. users better get used to holding onto their aging gear for far longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech companies big and small now struggle to tantalize you with tech without telling you how much it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[89767,68766,64,63,46652,2490,81326,266,84323,4688,105],"class_list":["post-128784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-acer","tag-anker","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dji","tag-donald-trump","tag-ifa-2025","tag-lenovo","tag-roborock","tag-tariffs","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}