Trump
warns exemptions on smartphones, electronics will be short-lived, promises
future tariffs
The US
president has said no one is ‘getting off the hook’, as he promises to launch a
national security investigation into the semiconductor sector
Helen
Davidson and agencies
Sun 13 Apr
2025 20.21 EDT
The
exemption of smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import
tariffs on China will be short-lived, top US officials have said, with Donald
Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook.”
“There was
no Tariff ‘exception’, Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. “These
products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just
moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”
In the post
on his Truth Social platform, Trump promised to launch a national security
trade investigation into the semiconductor sector and the “whole electronics
supply chain”.
“We will not
be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like
China,” he added.
The White
House had announced on Friday the exclusion of some electronic products from
steep reciprocal tariffs on China. US stock markets were expected to stage a
recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on
course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted
for 90 days.
China’s
commerce ministry said the exemption demonstrated the US taking “a small step
toward correcting its erroneous unilateral practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’,”
and insisted Washington cancel the whole tariff regime.
Zhang Li,
president of the China Center for Information Industry Development, told state
media outlet, China Daily, that the exemptions proved “how important China is
to major US tech companies that rely heavily on the country for manufacturing
and innovation”.
However,
Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical
technology products from China would face separate new duties along with
semiconductors within the next two months.
Lutnick said
Trump would enact “a special focus-type of tariff” on smartphones, computers
and other electronics products in a month or two, alongside sectoral tariffs
targeting semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. The new duties would fall outside
Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China, he said.
“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,” Lutnick
said in an interview on ABC, predicting that the levies would bring production
of those products to the United States. “These are things that are national
security, that we need to be made in America.”
The world’s
two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving game of brinkmanship
since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese
imports. China’s leader Xi Jinping said on Monday that protectionism “leads
nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners”.
Tit-for-tat
exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145%, and Beijing
setting a retaliatory 125% levy on US imports. On Friday Beijing said it would
ignore any future raises in tariffs by Trump, as they were already so high that
there was “no market acceptance for US goods” in China.
On Monday a
spokesperson for China’s Customs agency said the country’s exports were facing
a complex and severe external situation but “the sky will not fall”. They said
China’s domestic demand was broad, and they were building a diversified market.
Trump’s
back-and-forth on tariffs has triggered the wildest swings on Wall Street since
the Covid pandemic of 2020. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index is
down more than 10% since Trump took office on 20 January.
After
announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners, Trump abruptly
issued a 90-day pause for most of them. China was excluded from the reprieve.
The fallout
from Trump’s tariffs – and subsequent whiplash policy reversals – sent shock
waves through the US economy, with investors dumping government bonds, the
dollar tumbling and consumer confidence plunging.
US senator
Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, criticised the latest revision to Trump’s tariff
plan, which economists have warned could dent economic growth and fuel
inflation.
“There is no
tariff policy – only chaos and corruption,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week,”
speaking before Trump’s latest post on social media.
China has
sought to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid the escalating trade
war. Xi will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia.
With Reuters
and Agence France-Presse
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