Trump’s planned 100% computer chip tariff sparks confusion among businesses and trading partners
President Donald Trump’s plans for 100% tariffs on computer fleas that is not made in the United States are confusing between businesses and business partners-stimulating actions for the main semiconductor companies while letting small producers blur to understand the implications.
The United States imports a relatively small number of fleas because most chips made abroad in a device – from an iPhone to a car – were already assembled as a product or part of a product before landing in the country.
“The real question that everyone in the industry is asking is if there will be a component rate, where the chips in a device would require a sort of distinct tariff calculation,” said Martin Chorzampa, principal researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Trump said on Wednesday that companies that “undertook to build” in the United States would be spared the import tax, even if they do not yet produce these tokens in American factories.
“We are going to put a price of about 100% on chips and semiconductors,” said Trump in the oval office while meeting Apple CEO Tim Cook. “But if you build in the United States of America, there is no fee.”
Wall Street investors have interpreted this as good news not only for American companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia, but also for the largest Asian flea manufacturers like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company who worked to build American factories.
But that has left greater uncertainty for small flea manufacturers in Europe and Asia who have little exposure to AI boom but always make semiconductors inserted in essential products such as cars or washing machines.
These producers “are probably not large enough to get on the map for an exemption and would probably not have the type of excess capital and the margins to be able to add large-scale investments in the United States,” said Chorzampa.
The announcement occurred for more than three months after Trump temporarily exempt most electronics from the most expensive prices in his administration.
During the COVVI-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer flea increased the price of cars and contributed to higher inflation. Chorzampa said that flea prices could again increase the prices of hundreds of dollars per vehicle if semiconductors inside a car are not exempt.
“There is a chip that allows you to open and close the window,” said Chorzampa. “There is a chip that executes the entertainment system. There is a chip that somehow performs all electronics. There are chips, especially in electric vehicles, which management of food, all of these kinds of things.”
A large part of the investment in the creation of American flea factories began with the Bipartite Chips and Science Act law that President Joe Biden signed in law in 2022, providing more than $ 50 billion to support new computer factories, fundraising and formal employees for industry.
Trump vocally opposed these financial incentives and adopted a different approach, betting that the threat of considerably higher flea costs would require most companies to open factories at the national level, despite the risk that prices can repress companies and increase electronics prices.
