Trump flirts with 25% and 'substantially higher' tariffs on all computer chips
The Trump-tariff love fest is clearly going to run and run. But for what it's worth, the latest PC-relevant development involves a blanket 25% tariff—and rising—on all chips coming into the USA (via Bloomberg). To be clear, nothing official has been announced, but President Trump says the tariff is «likely».
That's a shift or perhaps just an adjunct to Trump's earlier expressed intention to slap up to 100% tariffs on Taiwanese-made chips. To be clear about Trump's statements, in the course of a conversation with journalist at his Mar-a-Lago club, Trump first said that he was planning on announcing tariffs on cars on April 2, «in the neighbourhood of 25%.»
When quizzed whether similar tariffs might apply to pharmaceuticals and chips, Trump reportedly replied, «it’ll be 25% and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over a course of a year.»
While the context and implication is that the chip tariff will be universal, the President did not detail whether some countries might get wavers. As a for instance, Intel has advanced fabs in both Israel and Ireland. Would they be subject to the tariffs? Or is Trump thinking more about the likes of Taiwan and China?
At this stage, and as is often the case with Trump, it's anyone's guess. Indeed, it wouldn't be much of a surprise at all if no chip-specific tariffs were ever imposed. Or maybe it'll be 100% on everything from everywhere. For three days. Take your pick.
Either way, Trump also said he wanted to give companies «time to come in», meaning time to shift their chip production to the US. “When they come into the United States and they have their plant or factory here there is no tariff, so we want to give them a little bit of a chance,” Trump explained.
How much time isn't clear. However the reality of chip production doesn't fit terribly well with Trump's hair-trigger tariff MO. Even if, say, TSMC wanted to move all of its production to the US, it would take many years to achieve that.
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