Tariffs: Trump says he will look at ‘whole electronics supply chain’

US President Donald Trump pledged he will still apply tariffs to phones, computers and popular consumer electronics, downplaying a weekend exemption as a procedural step in his overall push to remake US trade.

The late April 11 reprieve – exempting a range of popular electronics from 125 per cent tariffs on China and a 10 per cent flat rate around the globe – is temporary and a procedural step in the longstanding plan to apply a different, specific tariff to the sector. Mr Trump doubled down on the plan on April 13.

“NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” Mr Trump said in an April 13 social media post, issued shortly after he finished his golf game. The exempted products are “just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket’” and the administration will be “taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN”, he added. 

Taken together, the comments from Mr Trump and two of his top trade chiefs on April 13 are a stark reminder of the scope of his planned tariff onslaught. Still, the manoeuvre means weeks, maybe months, without extra tariffs on the array of phones and computers before the specific sectoral tariff on electronics kicks in. It also opens a window for companies and lobbyists to push for different parameters and exclusions. 

The exemptions were published in a US Customs and Border Protection document late on April 11, and are a step to shift those products ultimately to a different tariff, which Mr Trump has long threatened for semiconductors, without specifying the scope.

Mr Trump already carved out those sectors he plans to specifically target from being hit by both those tariffs and the across-the-board ones on countries he enacted this month in his “Liberation Day” announcement that triggered a market sell-off.

The pause on April 11 was nonetheless a temporary victory for Apple and other manufacturers who rely on Chinese manufacturing in particular, and the country’s government had welcomed the exemptions and urged Mr Trump to go further.

“This is a small step by the US towards correcting its wrongful action of unilateral ‘reciprocal tariffs’,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement posted on its official WeChat account on April 13. The ministry urged the US to “take a big stride in completely abolishing the wrongful action, and return to the correct path of resolving differences through equal dialogue based on mutual respect”.

But US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other administration officials said on April 13 it was only a pause before they’re shifted to different tariffs, though those will almost certainly be lower than the 125 per cent rate on China that Mr Trump set last week, and perhaps higher than the 10 per cent rate charged on other countries.

“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus-type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” Mr Lutnick said on April 13 on ABC’s This Week. “We can’t be relying on China for fundamental things that we need.”

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said the chaos would hurt investment in the US.

“Investors will not invest in the United States when Donald Trump is playing red light green light with tariffs and saying, ‘oh, and for my special donors, you get a special exception’,” she said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Mr Trump’s latest exemptions cover almost US$390 billion (S$515 billion) in US imports based on official US 2024 trade statistics, including more than US$101 billion from China, according to data compiled by Mr Gerard DiPippo, associate director of the Rand China Research Centre.

Semiconductor tariffs to come

The White House had long said it would not apply its country tariffs – 125 per cent on China, 10 per cent on nearly every other nation – to sectors that were going to get their own specific tariffs. Mr Trump has already enacted those sector-specific tariffs for steel, aluminium and autos, while teeing up additional ones on auto parts and copper and pledging yet others on semiconductor chips, pharmaceutical drugs, lumber and maybe critical minerals.

The semiconductor tariffs are “coming in probably a month or two”, Mr Lutnick said. He said a notice will be published in the federal registry this week related to semiconductors, but he did not elaborate.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also pledged the products would face a different tariff.

“It’s not that they won’t be subject to tariffs geared at reshoring.

“They’ll just be under a different regime. It’s shifting from one bucket of tariffs to a different bucket of potential tariffs,” Mr Greer said on April 13 on Face The Nation with Margaret Brennan.

Mr Trump on April 12 hinted at further developments on April 14.

“We’ll be very specific on Monday,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “We’re taking in a lot of money; as a country we’re taking in a lot of money.”

April 11’s exclusion was the first time that the Trump administration published a detailed list of what products it thinks fall under the umbrella of semiconductors, which are used in electronics products of all kinds. They are not required to apply the sectoral tariff to the same list but Mr Lutnick indicated they would.

In some ways, Mr Trump’s April 11 exclusions were an announcement of the products that will be targeted by the sectoral tariff on “semiconductors”, which are used widely in all kinds of products. But the administration may yet adjust the scope.

It is not clear what tariff rate the administration would apply to semiconductors and products it covers under that tax, but they have been 25 per cent so far on other industries. Those so-called Section 232 tariffs may prove more permanent than Mr Trump’s country rates, which are based on a more vulnerable legal authority and which he has said he will negotiate.

The tariff reprieve does not extend to a separate Trump tariff on China – a 20 per cent duty applied to pressure Beijing to crack down on fentanyl, including the shipment of precursor materials. Other previously existing tariffs, including those that predate Mr Trump’s current term, also appear unaffected.

Mr Trump, in his social media post on April 13, reiterated that the 20 per cent rate still applies.

On China, “everyone pays at least the 20 per cent and these particular components are being put through a separate process controlled by the Department of Commerce which is the 232”, Mr Lutnick told ABC. BLOOMBERG