WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said the United States will impose a tariff of about 100 percent on imports of semiconductors but offered up a big exemption – it will not apply to companies that are manufacturing in the US or have committed to do so.
The move is part of Trump’s efforts to bring manufacturing back to the United States, and his remarks on Wednesday were made in tandem with an announcement that Apple would be investing an additional $100 billion in its home market.
For companies like Apple, which have committed to build in the United States, “there will be no charge,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
He warned, however, that companies should not try to wrangle out of pledges to build US factories.
“If, for some reason, you say you’re building and you don’t build, then we go back and we add it up, it accumulates, and we charge you at a later date, you have to pay, and that’s a guarantee,” Trump added.
The comments were, however, not a formal tariff announcement, and much remains unclear about how companies and countries around the world will be impacted.
Trump’s mention of the proposed 100 percent rate for chips came in just ahead of US levies of 10 percent to 50 percent kicking in on Thursday for many goods from dozens of trading partners. Rates on semiconductors and other key tech goods have been the subject of a US national security probe – the results of which are expected to be announced by mid-August.
Trump’s Wednesday remarks produced an immediate flurry of reactions from concerned countries and business lobbies.
South Korea’s top trade envoy said on Thursday that major chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will not be subject to 100 percent tariffs, and South Korea will have the most favourable levies on semiconductors under a trade deal between Washington and Seoul.
Samsung and SK Hynix declined to comment.
On the other end of the spectrum, the president of the Philippine semiconductor industry, Dan Lachica, said Trump’s plan would be “devastating” for his country.
In Malaysia, which is a big player in chip testing and packaging globally, trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz warned parliament his country “will risk losing a major market in the United States if its products become less competitive as a result of the imposition of these tariffs.”
