US Exempts Tech Imports in Tariff Step Back
Washington: The Trump administration has exempted a raft of consumer electronics from its punishing import tariffs — offering relief to US tech firms and partially dialing down a trade war with China.
A notice issued late Friday by the US Customs and Border Protection office announced that smartphones, laptops, memory chips, and other products would be excluded from the global levies President Donald Trump rolled out a week ago.
The move came as retaliatory Chinese import tariffs of 125 percent on US goods took effect Saturday, with Beijing standing defiant against its biggest trade partner.
The exemptions will benefit major US tech companies such as Nvidia, Dell, and Apple, which manufactures iPhones and other premium products in China. They will also narrow the impact of the staggering 145 percent tariffs Trump has imposed this year on Chinese goods entering the United States.
According to senior RAND researcher Gerard DiPippo, US Customs data suggests the exempted items account for more than 20 percent of Chinese imports.
Although semiconductors are listed among the exempted goods, they could still be subject to industry-specific tariffs Trump has suggested applying to imports from all countries. Trump said Saturday that he would give a “very specific” answer regarding future semiconductor levies on Monday.
Tech Relief
Daniel Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, called the US exemptions the “best news possible” for tech investors.
The exclusions remove “a huge black cloud” that had threatened to set the US tech sector back a decade and significantly slow AI development, Ives said.
Many of the exempted products — including hard drives and computer processors — are not generally made in the United States. Trump has argued that tariffs are a way to bring domestic manufacturing back.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt commented that companies like Apple and Nvidia were still “hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States” as soon as possible. However, analysts suggest it will likely take years to ramp up domestic production capacity.
Nouriel Roubini, an economist at New York University, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the exemptions would “not reshore iPhones or tech goods” and wouldn’t help produce “cheap goods we can’t and won’t produce at home.”
He described the president’s policy as “contradictory, dissonant, inconsistent, and incoherent… taken by the seat of the pants.”
China ‘Not Afraid’
Even with Washington and Beijing at economic loggerheads and financial markets in turmoil, Trump has remained adamant that his tariff strategy is effective.
In response, China has vowed not to yield to what it sees as US bullying. In his first public comments on the tensions, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared Friday that China was “not afraid.”
Economists warn that the ongoing disruption in trade between the tightly integrated US and Chinese economies could increase prices for consumers and potentially spark a global recession. The US alone accounts for 16.4 percent of China’s exports, based on Beijing’s trade data. Total trade exchanges between the two nations stand at approximately $500 billion, with the US importing far more than it exports.
Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that US tariffs “inflict serious harm” on poorer nations.
“The United States has continuously introduced tariff measures, bringing enormous uncertainty and instability to the world, causing chaos both internationally and domestically within the US,” Wang said.
The White House maintains that Trump remains “optimistic” about reaching a deal with China. However, officials suggest the administration expects Beijing to make the first move.
