Electronics exempted from reciprocal tariffs will soon be subject to new semiconductor tariffs instead
US Customs and Border Protection on Friday night published a list of products excluded from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, including smartphones, computers and memory chips, along with other electronic devices and components. But in an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the move doesn’t mean these products will be exempt from tariffs altogether — they’re just getting their own category. “Those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs, which are coming,” Lutnick said.
It all comes shortly after Trump imposed a 125 percent tariff on goods from China, which the administration confirmed to CNBC and other outlets is in addition to the 20 percent tariff put in place earlier this year, bringing it to a total of 145 percent. Trump had previously announced higher reciprocal tariffs for other countries, too, but walked this back with a 90-day “pause” earlier this week. The pause does not apply to China, though, and there’s still a 10 percent tariff on imports from almost all countries. Electronics imports in particular are expected to be hit hard by the new rules, and we’ve already seen companies like Nintendo and Razer changing up their plans around upcoming product launches in the US.
The newly published exclusions would exempt many devices and parts from both the 10 percent global tariff and the steeper tariff on China, according to the notice published on Friday. Lutnick told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that, in doing this, the president was “just making sure everyone understood that all of these products are outside the reciprocal tariffs and they are going to have their own separate way of being considered.” The move is meant to “make sure that those products get reshored,” Lutnick said, or in other words, made in America. “So what he’s 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,” Lutnick said.
Update, April 13 2025, 1:43PM ET: This story has been updated to include new information about a separate semiconductor tariff from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that was shared in an ABC News interview on Sunday.
