United States president Donald Trump’s administration exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics from its so-called reciprocal tariffs, potentially cushioning consumers from price rises while benefiting electronics giants including Apple and Samsung.
The exclusions, published late on Friday by US Customs and Border Protection, narrow the scope of the levies by excluding the products from Trump’s 125 per cent China tariff and his baseline 10 per cent global tariff on nearly all other countries.
The exclusions would apply to smartphones, laptop computers, hard drives and computer processors and memory chips. Those popular consumer electronics items generally aren’t made in the US. Setting up domestic manufacturing would take years.
The decision to exempt mobile phones may remove - at least for now - an upset to the supply chain of Apple, which makes most of its phones in China. As much of this production is ordered from Apple’s plant in Cork there had been fears that a hit to the company’s supply lines could have affected profitability in the Irish operation, leading to a reduction in corporate tax payments in Ireland.
The products that won’t be subject to Trump’s new tariffs also include machines used to make semiconductors. That would be important for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has announced a major new investment in the US as well as other chipmakers.
The tariff reprieve may prove fleeting. The exclusions stem from the initial order, which prevented extra tariffs on certain sectors from stacking cumulatively on top of the countrywide rates. The exclusion is a sign the products may soon be subject to a different tariff, albeit almost surely a lower one for China.
One such exclusion was for semiconductors, to which Trump has regularly pledged to apply a specific tariff. He hasn’t yet done so but the latest exclusions appear to correspond with that exemption. Trump’s sectoral tariffs have so far been set at 25 per cent, though it’s not clear what his rate on semiconductors and related products would be.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. – Bloomberg with additional Irish Times reporting
