- Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the tariff relief on electronic devices is only temporary and new tariffs on tech devices will come into effect within the next month or two.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said President Donald Trump’s trade exemptions on electronic devices are only temporary.
On Friday, US Customs and Border Protection published a notice on Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs to include exemptions on smartphones, computers, semiconductors, flat panel TV displays, flash drives, memory cards, solid-state drives for data storage, and other key tech components.
That offered a reprieve from Trump’s China tariffs that had been hiked to 125% on top of the previously imposed 20% levy. It also followed his 90-day pause on most reciprocal duties announced on Wednesday.
“So what (Trump’s) doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon,” Lutnick told ABC News on Sunday.
In addition to tariffs on countries, Trump has imposed duties on steel, aluminum, and autos, while warning that tariffs on chips and pharmaceuticals are also on the way. The exemptions appear to pave the way for new tariffs, though they are expected to be lower than the 145% total rate Chinese imports face.
While Lutnick refers to duties on semiconductors coming in the near future, he also notes that other tech imports will be included in the upcoming tariffs that go beyond semiconductors in an effort to increase domestic manufacturing.
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that these products get reshored,” Lutnick said. “We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels — we need to have these things made in America.”
“We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us.”
Although the exemptions are only a temporary move according to Lutnick, the respite offers companies like Apple that assemble and import devices from China a bit of breathing room. Company shares have fallen more than 11% since Trump’s Rose Garden address.
“So, this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He’s just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries,” Lutnick said.
His clarification on the exemptions comes after the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said they were a "small step by the US toward correcting its wrongful action of unilateral ‘reciprocal tariffs.’”
It also said the US should “take a big stride in completely abolishing the wrongful action, and return to the correct path of resolving differences through equal dialog based on mutual respect.”
On Friday, China increased its tariffs on U.S. imports to 125% but added that it doesn't plan further retaliation.
