President Trump indicated that he will announce more customs tariffs this week on semiconductors as he moved forward with a commercial investigation related to national security.
This step will raise the cost of importing chips, which is a vital component of electronics, cars, games and other commodities. The United States relies heavily on semiconductors from Taiwan and other places in Asia, a dependence that Democrats and Republicans alike described as major risks of national security.
Mr. Trump has argued that the customs tariff would encourage companies to produce more chips locally, although some critics have asked about the effectiveness of the customs tariff in transferring an industry that has been largely focused in Asia.
Speaking on Sunday night from Air Force One, the president said that definitions will be announced on electronics very soon, “but he suggested that there may be room for exemptions.
“I am a very flexible person. I don’t change my opinion, but I am flexible,” said Mr. Trump on Monday. He added that he spoke to the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, and “Help” recently.
The measures will come after Mr. Trump suddenly changed a path to imposing taxes on electronic imports in recent days.
Amid a dispute with China, Mr. Trump raised a tariff last week on Chinese imports to at least 145 percent, before exempting smartphones, laptops, televisions and other electronics on Friday. These goods constitute about a quarter of American imports from China.
The administration argued that this step was simply “clarifying”, saying that these electronics would be included in the scope of national security on the chips.
But the executives and analysts in the industry asked whether the real motive for the administration may be to avoid a violent reaction linked to a sharp increase in prices for many consumer electronics – or to help technology companies such as the Apple that has He arrived at the White House In the last days of the claim that the customs tariff will harm them.
The president told reporters at the Oval Office on Monday: “The higher the tariff, the sooner they come.”
“We no longer make our drugs,” said Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump raised and reduced many tariff prices over the past week, which led to the financial market cavity and the risk change of companies worldwide. The President announced a “mutual” global tariff program on April 2, including the major fees for countries that make many electronics, such as Vietnam. but After turmoil in the bond marketStop these global definitions for 90 days so that his government can hold trade negotiations with other countries.
These import taxes came in addition to the other customs tariff that Mr. Trump put on a variety of sectors and countries, including a 10 percent tariff on all American imports, a 25 percent tariff on steel, aluminum and cars, and a 25 percent tariff for many goods from Canada and Mexico. In all, the movements increased from the American definitions to levels that were not seen more than a century ago.
The semiconductor tariff will be issued under Article 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Law, which allows the president to impose a tariff on the protection of US national security. The president has already used this legal authority to issue customs tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and cars. The administration also uses the authority to conduct investigations into wood and copper imports, and it is expected to start investigating medications soon.
Kevin Haysit, director of the National Economic Council of the White House, told reporters on Monday that the tariff of chips was necessary for national security.
He said: “The example that I like to use is, if you have a cannon, but you get artillery balls from a discount, then if there is a kind of procedure, you may run out of artillery balls.” “Thus you can put a tariff on artillery balls.”
Mr. Trump has argued that the definitions of chips will force companies to transfer their factories to the United States. However, some critics have asked about the amount of definitions that will really help it in strengthening the United States industry, given that the Trump administration is also threatening to retreat from the grants offered to the chips factories by the Biden administration. Foreign governments such as China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all support the manufacture of semiconductors in a large way with tools such as grants and tax tariffs.
On the global level, 105 new chips, or FABS, was appointed online until 2028, according to the data collected by Semi, an association for international connectors suppliers. Fifteen of these were planned for the United States, while the largest part of Asia was planned.
Mr. Trump criticized the chips law, a program worth $ 50 billion, created under the Biden Administration and aims to provide incentives for the manufacture of chips in the United States. The grants were given a waste of money and insisted that the definitions alone are sufficient to encourage the production of local chips.
“If it is used intelligently, as part of a broader strategy to stimulate the making of American chips that include local manufacturing and purchasing preferential tax credits, as well as smart ways to reduce the next Tsunami of Chinese forgery,” said Jimmy Godrich, the Rand -Senior Technology Analysis Corporation, said.
He added: “However, the United States alone only calculates a quarter of all global requests on goods that contain chips, so working with allied countries is very important.”
Administration officials have suggested that the chips tariffs can be applied to semiconductors that come to the United States within other devices. Most of the chips are not imported directly – instead, they are assembled in electronics, games and car parts in Asia or Mexico before shipping them to the United States.
The United States has no system to apply definitions to covered chips within other products, but the US Trade Representative Office is looking into this question during the Biden administration. CEOs in the chips industry says this system will be difficult to establish, but it is possible.
Some technology companies responded to the president’s requests to build more in the United States. The semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan, the largest chips manufacturer in the world, announced in the White House in March that it will get Spending 100 billion dollars In the United States during the next four years to expand its productive capacity.
apple It has also been announced It will spend $ 500 billion in the United States over the next four years to expand facilities throughout the country.
On Monday, NVIDIA, the chips maker, announced that it will produce giant computers for fully artificial intelligence in the United States. In the next four years, the company said, it will produce up to $ 500 billion of Amnesty International Infrastructure in the United States in partnership with TSMC and other companies.
“The infrastructure of Amnesty International in the world is built for the first time,” Nvidia, CEO of NVIDIA, said in a statement.
The White House started from the news in a declaration due to the president.
“It is Trump’s effect on work,” the statement said. “The Bulla of these industries is useful for the American worker, and it is good for the American economy and good for American national security – and the best has not yet come.”
Tribal Michael The reports contributed.
