SHORT-LIVED RELIEF?
Washington’s new exemptions will benefit US tech companies such as Nvidia and Dell as well as Apple, which makes iPhones and other premium products in China.
The relief could be short-lived with some of the exempted consumer electronics targeted for upcoming sector-specific tariffs on goods deemed key to US national defence networks.
On Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said tariffs on the semiconductors – which powers any major technology from e-vehicles and iPhones to missile systems – “will be in place in the not distant future”.
“Like we did with steel, like we did with automobiles, like we did with aluminum … we’ll be doing that with semiconductors, with chips and numerous other things,” he said.
“We want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country,” Trump reiterated, adding that he would do the same with “drugs and pharmaceuticals”.
The US president said he would announce tariffs rates for semiconductors “over the next week”, while his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said they would likely be in place “in a month or two”.
The White House says Trump remains optimistic about securing a deal with China, although administration officials have made it clear they expect Beijing to reach out first.
Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “we don’t have any plans” for talks between the US president and Xi.
JAPAN NEGOTIATES
The White House insists the aggressive policy is bearing fruit, saying dozens of countries have already opened trade negotiations to secure deals before the 90-day pause ends.
“We’re working around the clock, day and night, sharing paper, receiving offers and giving feedback to these countries,” Greer told CBS.
Japanese Economic Revitalisation Minister Ryosei Akazawa will visit Washington for negotiations this week, with his country’s automakers hit by Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on the auto sector.
He warned that Japanese company profits are already “being cut day by day”.
“I will do my best, bearing in mind what’s best for our national interests and what is most effective,” Akazawa said in parliament.
