The Trump administration is carving out large tariff exemptions for the technological industry.
While President Donald Trump declared on Wednesday that he would delay many of the rates that upset the market that had announced the previous week, has maintained a universal rate of 10%, also increasing the rates of Chinese goods to 125% (in addition to a 20% rate that had already imposed on goods from China).
There have been many speculations on what the rates will mean for the technological industry, which produces many consumption electronics in China and elsewhere abroad. One of the declared objectives of Trump is to bring production to the United States, but others believe that the dream of an American manufacture iPhone is a fantasy.
These debates can be on pause after Friday evening, when the protection of US customs and borders published a list of categories of products that are “excluded from the mutual rates imposed on the basis of executive order 14257”, with the exclusions backdated to April 5.
These categories seem to include smartphones, laptops, rigid discs and semiconductors. These products will all be exempt both from the 125% rate on the goods from China and from the universal basic rate. (Other rates, such as the previous 20% rate on Chinese goods, would presumably apply.)
The remarkable characters of the Silicon Valley led by Elon Musk have joined the Trump administration, while other technological managing directors have courted Trump, more visibly with millions of dollars donated to his inauguration. These efforts seemed to have little fruit – until last night, that Daniel Ives, head of the global research of technology at Wedbush Securities, described as “a dream scenario for technological investors”.
Technological giants such as Apple and Nvidia are probably celebrating news, as well as US consumers who will avoid a great markup on their next iPhone. But the industry could still be affected by more targeted rates and other restrictions. For example, the New York Times reports that the Trump administration is preparing a national safety survey on semiconductors.
