More Chaos: Trump Admin Signals New Tariffs on Electronics From China After Pause
After announcing an exemption for smartphones, computers and other electronic goods on Friday, White House officials now say more tariffs are coming.
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More Chaos: Trump Admin Signals New Tariffs on Electronics From China After Pause
On Friday, the administration announced an exemption for smartphones, computers, and other devices, but this weekend White House officials say more tariffs on those goods are coming
April 13, 2025
Donald Trump looks on during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on April 10, 2025, in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
The Trump administration had announced tariffs on products from China only to walk back that decision on Friday, issuing an exemption from astronomical 145 percent reciprocal tariffs for smartphones, computers, semiconductors, and other electronic devices — although other tariffs would still apply.
But on Sunday, the administration had senior White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick on NBC’s Meet the Press and ABC’s This Week, respectively. Both only added to the confusion around the issue.
Lutnick said that the technology exemption was only put in place temporarily until the administration can write a new policy for those goods.
“Those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs which are coming,” Lutnick told host Jonathan Karl. “So, you’re going to see this week there will be a register in the federal registry. There will be a notice put out.”
Lutnick added that semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports from China are “going to have a special focus-type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” adding that those tariffs “are coming in probably a month or two.”
“Our medicines and our semiconductors need to be built in America. Donald Trump is on it. He’s calling that out,” Lutnick said. “So, you should understand these are included in the semiconductor tariffs that are coming and the pharmaceuticals are coming.”
Experts have warned that forcing a company like Apple to manufacture iPhones in America could come at a very steep cost, potentially doubling the cost of manufacturing the device, according to Bank of America analysts led by Wamsi Mohan. The cost of labor alone could increase 25 percent, they said. Another analyst, Wedbush’s Dan Ives, estimated that an iPhone made in the U.S.A. could cost $3,500 — nearly tripling the retail price. Apple currently manufactures more than 80 percent of its products in China.
“It’s pie in the sky,” Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC of an American-made iPhone.
More confusingly, Navarro insisted that the exemptions for electronics from reciprocal tariffs the White House announced on Friday are “not exclusions” to Trump’s tariff policy.
“The policy is no exemptions, no exclusions,” Navarro told Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker.
“Even the White House called it an exclusion,” Welker pointed out.
Despite the chaos and apparent flip-flopping, Navarro claimed the tariffs are “unfolding exactly like we thought it would in a dominant scenario.” (Anticipating the tariffs going into effect, the markets dipped, which Trump Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent, a multimillionaire, said was “healthy.” When the tariffs first began, the stock market plunged further and still hasn’t fully recovered. Trump has claimed the crash was intentional.)
Democrats meanwhile have been heavily critical of the administration’s tariffs and their effect on the markets.
“There is no tariff policy,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Sunday on ABC. “It’s all just chaos and corruption. That’s all we have going on. And how can you believe any of these guys?”
She continued by advocating for Congress to intervene: “These guys are into chaos and into corruption, and this is the reason it is time for Congress to step up and to say, under the authority that the president is currently using by declaring these national emergencies, ‘No.’ The law says specifically Congress can just say, there’s no national emergency across the board here, and revoke that authority from the president.”
Warren said that the courts could step in to stop Trump but that Congress should not wait for that because it has the power to intervene. “Every Democrat is ready to go, to push back and take away from the president the power he’s now exercising and the chaos he’s now creating,” she said.
“The question is whether or not the Republicans will join us in this,” she continued. Trump’s extreme approach to tariffs has Republicans scrambling to defend and make sense of the president’s aggressive strategy.
“There will be a vote in about 15 days,” Warren said. “The Republicans can either decide that their entire job is to do nothing but bow down to Donald Trump, or the Republicans in Congress can say that their job is to stand up for the American people and to stand up for the American economy and roll back what Donald Trump is doing.”
Warren also pressed the Securities and Exchange Commission to conduct a “sweeping review of all securities trades” to investigate whether federal officials, including Trump, violated insider trading laws.
“It’s entirely appropriate to have an investigation to make sure that Donald Trump, Donald Trump’s family, Donald Trump’s inner circle didn’t get advance information and trade on that information,” Warren said. She also mentioned legislation she introduced to block members of Congress from insider training.
“The American people should never have to wonder, when the president, when his Cabinet, when members of Congress are making a decision, whether it’s for the good of the country or for the good of their own bank account,” she said.
Three of four Americans polled by CBS News/YouGov said they believe Trump’s tariffs and trade policies will benefit the wealthy and increase prices in the short term, while 71 percent said that large corporations will benefit.
dude where do you think china gets their ideas from?!? aint shyt original.
