Trump warns China ‘not getting off the hook’ on US tariffs for electronics

US President Donald Trump has warned that exemptions on smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived.

Trump has said that no one is “getting off the hook” on trade after his administration appeared to dial down pressure on China by issuing a notice exempting certain high-tech products from his “reciprocal” tariffs.

US ‘will not be held hostage’

“We will not be held hostage by other countries, especially hostile trading nations like China,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

On Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said tariffs on the semiconductors – which powers any major technology from e-vehicles and iPhones to missile systems – will be in place soon.

“Like we did with steel, like we did with automobiles, like we did with aluminum … we’ll be doing that with semiconductors, with chips and numerous other things,” he said.

“We want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country,” Trump reiterated, adding that he would do the same with “drugs and pharmaceuticals”.

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Tariff rates

The US president said he would announce tariff rates for semiconductors “over the next week”, while his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said they would likely be in place “in a month or two”.

A notice late on Friday by the US Customs and Border Protection office said smartphones, computers and other electronics would be excluded from the import levies Trump rolled out a week ago.

The move came as retaliatory Chinese import tariffs of 125% on US goods took effect on Saturday, with Beijing standing defiant against its primary trade competitor.

Exemptions

The exemptions will benefit US tech giants like Nvidia and Apple that make iPhones and other premium products in China, and will generally narrow the impact of the staggering 145% tariffs Trump has imposed this year on Chinese goods entering the US.

Earlier, Beijing’s Commerce Ministry had said Friday’s move only “represents a small step” and insisted that the Trump administration should “completely cancel” the whole tariff strategy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Monday – as he kicked off a tour of Southeast Asia with a visit to manufacturing powerhouse Vietnam – that protectionism “will lead nowhere”, AFP reported.

Trump sent financial markets into a tailspin earlier this month by announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners, only to abruptly announce a 90-day pause for most of them.

China was excluded from the reprieve.

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