The Trump administration stepped in late Friday to exclude from tariffs a broad range of electronics products, including semiconductors and products including them like smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktops and flat screen TVs.
New guidance issued at 10:36 pm EDT Friday by US Customs and Border Protection also exempts devices used to create semiconductors from Trump’s 125% reciprocal tariff on China goods imported to the US as well as his 10% baseline tariff on countries globally. The US also has a 20% tariff on Chinese imports meant to confront illegal imports of fentanyl.
The new guidance comes as a relief to a broad array of electronics companies that manufacture some or all of their electronics outside the US. Apple makes the majority of its products in China and news of tariffs up to 145% on products from China had forced investors to sell Apple stock, with shares down 11% since April 2.
Wedbush Securities analysts called the new tariff exclusion “the best news possible for tech investors…Big Tech firms like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and the broad tech industry can breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend into Monday.”
Trump imposed the tariffs to force companies to build operations in the US, and Apple had earlier said it will be investing $500 billion in new US manufacturing in coming years.
Trump had announced a 90-pause on all reciprocal tariffs for US trading partners except China following market losses over several days and China retaliated on Friday by raising tariffs to 125%.
According to the CBP guidance at least 20 categories of electronics will be excluded from tariffs under the following CBP codes:
- 8471
- 8473.30
- 8486
- 8517.13.00
- 8517.62.00
- 8523.51.00
- 8524
- 8528.52.00
- 8541.10.00
- 8541.21.00
- 8541.29.00
- 8541.30.00
- 8541.49.10
- 8541.49.70
- 8541.49.80
- 8541.49.95
- 8541.51.00
- 8541.59.00
- 8541.90.00
- 8542
Code 8542 refers to electronic integrated circuits and parts thereof, defined as processors and controllers whether or not combined with memories, converters, logic circuits, amplifiers, clock and timing circuits and other circuits.
Code 8524 refers to flat panel display modules.
Code 8471 refers to “automatic data processing machines and machines for transcribing and processing coded data."