President Donald Trump exempted smartphones, computers, and other tech devices and components from his reciprocal tariffs, new guidance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows, CNBC reported.
The guidance, issued late Friday evening, comes after Trump earlier this month imposed 145% tariffs on products from China, a move that threatened to take a toll on tech giants like Apple, which makes iPhones and most of its other products in China.
The guidance also includes exclusions for other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells, flat panel TV displays, flash drives, and memory cards.
The White House said on Saturday the exemptions were made because Trump wants to ensure that companies have time to move production to the U.S.
White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai said in a statement that Trump “has made it clear Americans cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops.”
The 20 product categories listed in the CBP guidelines are apparently exempt from the 125% tariff imposted by Trump on Chinese imports and the 10% baseline tariff on imports from other countries. A 20% tariff on all Chinese goods remains in effect.
BBC reported: US President Trump’s administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from “reciprocal” tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.
US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump’s 10% global tariff on most countries and the much lager Chinese import tax.
The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China.
This is the first significant reprieve of any kind in Trump’s tariffs on China, with one trade analysts describing it as a “game changer scenario.”
The exemptions – backdated to 5 April – also include other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and memory cards.
Gizmodo reported: Donald Trump’s staff regime keeps getting less and less robust.
In the latest backtrack from the administration following the repeated warning of the markets to chip out a bit, the US Customs and Border Protection published guidance late Friday night that introduced a new exemption for smartphones, computers, and other electronics – a major carveout for tech companies that were feeling the crunch.
The exemptions, as reported by Bloomberg, include popular devices like iPhones and MacBooks, as well as Android and Windows devices made overseas. It also includes hardware like hard drives, computer processors, memory chips, and graphics cards.
Some have noted that the exemption does not include video game consoles, which leaves things still pretty up in the air for the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2.