Advertisement
US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

US says exempted electronic products, like smartphones, to come under separate tariffs

US President Donald Trump had, on Friday, granted exclusions from steep tariffs on such goods, which are imported largely from China

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
46
US President Donald Trump addresses the media on board Air Force One on his way to Florida on Sunday. Photo: Reuters
Robert Delaneyin Washington
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview on Sunday that smartphones, computers and some other electronics will be subject to a new tariff rate that is separate from others that US President Donald Trump has put on imports from China in recent weeks.
Speaking in an interview with ABC’s This Week in which he was grilled about a tariff exemption on a wide range of electronics, including smartphones and equipment used to make semiconductors, Lutnick said these products will face “sectoral tariffs” instead of the so-called “reciprocal” levies announced earlier this month.

Trump followed up on the messaging later on Sunday, insisting that “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair Trade Balances”. He also confirmed that electronics products to fall under the new tariff category remain subject to 20 per cent tariffs that the president slapped on all imports from China this year in a bid to push Beijing to block outbound shipments of fentanyl and the chemicals used to make the deadly opioid.

“We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations,” Trump said on social media. “What has been exposed is that we need to make products in the United States, and that we will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China.”

13:28

How a shift toward Trump by tech giants like Meta could reshape Asia's digital future

How a shift toward Trump by tech giants like Meta could reshape Asia's digital future

Details of the new tariff rate will come out in the US Federal Register this week and they may take effect in “a month or so”, Lutnick said.

“We did that in autos,” Lutnick said, apparently referring to 25 per cent auto tariffs Trump imposed on March 26.
Advertisement