Special tariffs on exempted electronic products soon: US Commerce Secretary

Smartphones, computers and some other electronics will come under separate tariffs, along with semiconductors that will be imposed in a month or so, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC News on Sunday.

Lutnick’s announcement came after the Donald Trump administration late on Friday granted exclusions from steep tariffs on such products, imported largely from China. The move provided a big break to tech firms like Apple that rely on imported products.

This also meant that those products would not be subject to steep tariffs on Chinese imports and also not the global 10 per cent tariff rate imposed by Trump.

However, Lutnick told ABC News that the administration’s decision to exempt a range of electronic devices from tariffs announced on April 2 was only a temporary reprieve. He stressed that they would be subject to “semiconductor tariffs” that will likely come in “a month or two”.

“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. We need to have semiconductors. We need to have chips and we need to have flat panels. We need to have these things made in America. We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia, particularly China, for all of the things that operate for us,” he said.

“So, what President Trump is doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. “So these are coming soon,” he said.

Lutnick also said that pharmaceutical tariffs would also be imposed in a month or two.

The Commerce Secretary stressed that the administration will implement a “tariff model” to encourage the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries to move its business back to the US.

“We can’t be beholden and rely upon foreign countries for fundamental things that we need. So this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He’s just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security that we need to be made in America,” he said.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.