The Trump Administration has unexpectedly excluded electronic products such as smartphones or laptops from the special tariffs on imports from China and many other countries. As stated in a press release by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, hard drives, processors, or memory chips are also exempt from the tariffs. Equipment for semiconductor production is also exempt from the tariffs.
The special rules primarily benefit US corporations such as Apple or Nvidia, which import a large portion of their products from China and other Asian countries. They feared significant revenue losses and disruptions to their supply chains due to the tariffs.
With the newly announced exemptions, products such as smartphones will now only be subject to a 20% tariff that was imposed by Trump before the announcement of the counter-tariffs. The 10% tariff on imports from other countries will also be suspended for the products affected by the exemption for the time being. Last week, President Trump had already announced that a significant portion of the tariffs imposed on imports from other countries as of April would be suspended for 90 days. For them, a base tariff of 10% will now apply.
A million dollars had been donated by Apple CEO Tim Cook for Trump’s inauguration. The money came from Cook personally, unlike Google and Microsoft. According to observers, however, the reason why Trump granted the exemption despite Apple’s adherence to diversity rules is not due to Cook, but rather the importance of smartphones and notebooks.
It remains to be seen how China will react. With the exemptions, Trump has exposed his Achilles heel. The Chinese leadership could use their dominance in the production of electronic goods to seek revenge, for example, by imposing a special tax on devices exported to the US.