The latest exemption is the first sign of a possible softening of the US trade war with Beijing, covering imports from China.
Smartphones, laptops and many other high-tech components are spared from the Trump administration’s so-called “mutual tariffs,” according to a notice issued by US Customs and Border Protection.
Friday US CBP lists 20 product categories including 8471 codes that are very broad for all computers, laptops, disk drives and automatic data processing. It also included semiconductor devices, equipment, memory chips and flat panel displays.
This exclusion provides a welcome relief to major US technology companies, including Apple and many other importers.
There were no immediate comments from the White House about the exemption.
However, the exemption suggests a growing awareness within the Trump administration of pain that his tariffs had for US consumers, particularly for popular products such as smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices.
Daniel Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, called the US exemption “the best news possible for high-tech investors.”
“The US tariff exemption applies to computers, smartphones, and chip manufacturing equipment that you take. [away] He is, for now, a huge black cloud overhang,” he said, in a memo cited by AFP News Agency.
Without these exemptions, he said, “The US tech industry will return to ten years and the papers on the AI revolution will be significantly slower.”
The move comes as a retaliatory 125% Chinese import duties on US goods came into effect on Saturday, and Beijing rebelliously stood up against its major trading competitors.
Earlier this week, Trump officials announced a 90-day refusal on “mutual” tariffs in most countries, introducing a 10% percentage instead, but China remained excluded from the revised scheme.
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