WASHINGTON: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday (Apr 13) that smartphones, computers and some other electronics, just exempted from steep tariffs on imports from China, would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.
Lutnick’s comments on ABC’s “This Week” flagging the coming levies on critical technology products mark the latest twist in President Donald Trump’s tariff plans, which have upended the global trading order and roiled financial markets since they were announced on what he branded “Liberation Day” on Apr 2.
Late on Friday the Trump administration granted exclusions from the steep reciprocal tariffs on smartphones and a set of other electronics products, a move seen as a big break for technology firms such as Apple and Dell Technologies that rely on imports from China.
Trump’s back-and-forths on tariffs have kicked off a trade war with China and prompted the wildest swings on Wall Street since the COVID pandemic of 2020. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down more than 10 percent since Trump took office on Jan 20.
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. He said those new levies would fall outside Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, under which levies on Chinese imports climbed to 125 percent this week.
“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 the 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.”
With his comments, Lutnick appeared to go beyond what was communicated on Saturday, when a White House official told media that Trump would launch a new national security trade investigation into semiconductors soon that could lead to other new tariffs.
Beijing increased its own tariffs on US imports to 125 percent on Friday, striking against Trump’s tariffs. China said on Sunday that it was evaluating the impact of the exclusions for the technology products implemented late on Friday.
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