The US government has excluded smartphones, laptops and other important electronics of special tariffs against numerous countries – including China.
The exception is a great relief for American providers of computer technology, which largely have their devices produced in Asia. It is another withdrawal of President Donald Trump in his customs circuit.
As can be seen from a message from the customs and border protection authority CBP, the taxes do not apply to hard drives and memory chips. A total of 20 product groups and subcategories are concerned. The authority relies on a memorandum of the President on Friday. According to this document, customs exception applies retrospectively from April 5.
While Trump had initially rowed back to most trading partners and had temporarily suspended parts of the additional taxes for 90 days, he had significantly tightened the course compared to Beijing this week. The United States is now demanding additional tariffs of 145 percent on imports from China, Beijing in turn wants to raise 125 percent on US goods.
At the same time, US media pointed out that the CBP expressly mentioned Trump’s decree on the additional tariffs when it comes to electronics and thus the previous so-called “Fentanyl-Zölle” from 20 percent to imports from China should continue to be due. Trump’s reason for this tariff was the accusation that the dangerous synthetic drug fentanyl would come to the USA from China
Good news for Apple and Nvidia
Apple particularly benefits from the relief: Most Iphones and other devices of the group are being built in China, even if production in Vietnam and India has been expanded in recent years.
Trump’s Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick enthused in TV interviews that iPhones could also be built in the USA with the help of robots. But industry experts believe that this would hardly be possible due to the lack of suppliers and specialists in the United States – or that the iPhones would make much more expensive. The Apple share has always been under pressure in the past few days. Apple was also one of the companies for which there were exceptions to China-Zöllen in Trump’s first term.
Customs exception is also good news for American companies that expand their data centers for artificial intelligence. The devices are built by US companies such as Dell Technologies mainly outside the United States, with chips from the California group Nvidia that come from Taiwan. A large part of the technology was already less affected because many of the servers are assembled in Mexico and fell with exceptions to trade agreements.
Foreign providers can also be happy
The exception to machines for chip production, which are mainly introduced from the Netherlands of ASML and Japan by Tokyo Electron to the USA. There are only a few specialized providers for it, the machines fill entire factory halls and cost hundreds of million dollars. Among other things, chip groups such as Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing are currently expanding their production in the USA with new factories.
According to US media, however, it could only be a mercy period, since Trump has already announced that it has announced certain industries with additional tariffs.
Washington (dpa-Afx)
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