On April 2, President Donald Trump laid out his list of reciprocal tariffs on countries, causing a global economic panic, sending stock markets across the planet into the red. A week later, on April 9, he announced that there would be a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on many of the countries on the list that didn't increase their tariffs on the U.S.
This pause gave some relief to companies worldwide that trade with the U.S. and are based in those countries or manufacture their products in a place like Vietnam, which was going to be subject to a 46% tariff. Gamers in the U.S. were especially worried, as there were concerns that the price of the recently announced Nintendo Switch 2 would jump due to the tariffs after the company halted pre-orders.
Late Friday evening, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection published a list of goods that would be excluded from the new tariffs. This list is primarily tech, such as smartphones, laptops, computer processors, memory, and hard drives. There was also a significant number products related to the manufacturing of semiconductors that were also included on the list.
What tech is being excluded from tariffs?
Here's a list of the products that won't be hit with tariffs based on the U.S. Customs' list:
- Computers and related devices
- Computer parts
- Semiconductor manufacturing equipment
- Smartphones
- Networking equipment
- Solid-state storage
- Recorded media
- Computer monitor
- Low-power transistors
- Other transistors
- Thyristors and triacs
- Other diodes
- Optocouplers
- Other semiconductors
- Semiconductor transducers
- Integrated circuits
- Parts of semiconductor devices
Tech isn't out of the woods yet.
While this reprieve may give tech companies like Apple and Samsung a sigh of relief, it's unclear whether this will be the end of worry over tariffs.
As evidenced by Trump's changing stances in just the past two weeks, there is no telling whether he won't change his mind again on removing these products from the excluded list.
Trump also said multiple times that there would be a tariff coming for semiconductors. He hasn't instituted that tariff yet, and if he does, how that affects the pricing of tech products is still unknown.
Computer manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo, and HP reportedly halted shipments of their computers earlier in the week, according to TechSpot. To beat the rush of tariffs, some companies went so far as to quickly ship a lot of their product from China.
These companies are feeling the pressure from the tariffs put on China, which has jumped to a shocking 145%. China, in turn, increased its tariffs on the U.S. in retaliation to 125%. Trump reportedly requested that Chinese President Xi Jinping call him about the tariffs.
