Trump grants tariff exceptions to smartphones, computers, other stuff Silicon Valley likes getting from China
In news that presumably had Apple CEO Tim Cook pulling his custom “Ask me about the time I was front and center at the second Trump inauguration!” sign back out of his trash can and placing it gingerly back on his desk, the White House issued a statement on Friday night that of course Trump’s massive, planet-destabilizing reciprocal tariffs on trade with China won’t affect things like smartphones, laptop computers, or graphics cards. Things that very rich people who donate to the Trump campaign would really like to keep having manufactured in China will be just fine, per new guidelines from U.S. Customs And Border Protection.
Said memo is largely written in the codes used by the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, the big book of everything the U.S. imports and slaps tariffs on, so it can all be a little arcane. But the bulletin (which was sent out last night, but apparently went into effect on April 5) specifies no reciprocal tariffs on codes 8471 (automatic data processing machines and units thereof), 8473.30 (which has an esoteric name, but which apparently is where graphics cards get slotted), 8517.13.00 (smartphones), 8523.51.00 (solid state drives), 8524 (flat-panel displays), and a whole bunch of codes related to individual parts like diodes and transistors. (How’s your Saturday morning going? Ours has been this.) All these products will be exempt from both the 125 percent tariff on Chinese-manufactured goods (which, unlike most of the reciprocal tariffs rolled out last week, wasn’t paused by Trump after the stock market immediately started tanking), and the 10 percent global baseline tariff.
(And before you ask, we checked: Video game consoles—covered under code 9504.50.00—are not on the list of exceptions, so please continue worrying about the ultimate U.S. price of Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2.)
We are not economists, political commentators, or even especially bright, but this does seem like a big, highly coded love letter to Silicon Valley, who would presumably really like to not have to set up a U.S.-based manufacturing system for these small, expensive, and very technical parts, what with China already having a perfectly nice one up and running. Does it also feel like Trump and his cronies are continuing to play Whack-A-Mole with various elements of the world economy, based on the whims of whoever’s yelling at him the loudest at any given moment? Sure, but at least Tim Cook doesn’t have to feel like he wasted that million buck donation!
[via CNN]