US President Donald Trump will speak on April 9, 2025 at the White House oval office in Washington, DC, before signing the executive order.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
President Donald Trump exempts smartphones, computers and other high-tech devices and components from his mutual tariffs, and new guidance from the US Customs and Border Protection Show.
The guidance issued late Friday evening comes after Trump imposed a 145% tariff on products from China earlier this month. appleIPHONE and most other products are manufactured in China.
This guidance also includes the exclusion of other electronic devices and components, such as semiconductors, solar cells, flat panel television displays, flash drives, and memory cards.
The White House said on Saturday that the exemption was issued as Trump wants to make sure businesses have time to move production to the US.
Kush Desai of the White House Deputy Press Bureau said in a statement that Trump “disclosed that the US cannot rely on China to manufacture important technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones and laptops.”
“At the president’s direction, these companies are preventing manufacturing from directing manufacturing to land in the United States as quickly as possible,” Desai said.
The 20 product categories listed in the CBP guidelines appear to be clearly exempt from the 125% tariffs imposed by Trump on Chinese imports and the 10% baseline tariffs on imports from other countries. A 20% tariff on all Chinese products remains in effect.
CNBC has asked the White House and CBP to confirm the total effective tariff rates for exempt products, but so far has not received a definitive answer.
The exemption is a victory for high-tech companies like Apple and makes up a large part of China’s products. According to Evercore ISI, the country manufactures 80% of iPads and more than half of Mac computers produced.
“This is a dream scenario for high-tech investors,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, told CNBC. “Smartphones, chips excluded are game-changer scenarios when it comes to Chinese tariffs.”
He added that tariffs are “a black cloud than technology since the day of liberation” because there are no sectors that are less damaged than Big Technology.
“I think the CEO of a major tech ultimately spoke out loud. I think the White House had to understand and listen to the situation, if implemented, that was an armageddon for big technology,” Ives said.
Since Trump’s tariff announcement, Apple has lost more than $640 billion in market value, CNBC previously reported. The iPhone’s cost under Trump’s tariff plans could be as high as $3,500, by some estimates.
Since the announcement of Trump’s tariffs, the stock has sold sharply as Wall Street uncertainty and volatility skyrocketed. The S&P 500 plummeted more than 5% during the period before the end of Friday.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury Department rose 50 basis points a week, one of the biggest jumps on record, as whiplash from Trump’s trade policy led investors to sell US assets.
The bond market move could have forced the White House’s hands to some reversal, including a 90-day tariff deferral, excluding China, in favor of the universal 10% rate announced Wednesday.
Items excluded from Trump’s mutual tariffs under the new guidelines are retroactive for products that have left the warehouse by April 5, 2025. This provides clarity and financial planning to US shippers who are responsible for arriving at customs in a few weeks and arrive for processing and release.
