President Trump removes tariffs off semiconductors, PC chips headed to the US

President Trump has just announced that the Unites States' reciprocal tariffs won't happen on smartphones, computers, and other electronics, which is a major win for US companies like Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, and more.

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The exclusions will apply to smartphones, laptops, storage products, CPUs, memory chips, as well as flat-screen displays. These are some of the most popular electronics products in the world, and most of them aren't made in the US, with their innards (processor, memory, etc) made in Taiwan, South Korea, or China.

The exemptions cover nearly $390 billion worth of US imports based on US 2024 trade statistics, reports Reuters, including over $101 billion from China. President Trump just enforced 125% tariffs on goods coming from China, with the new exemptions made because President Trump wants to give these companies more time to move their production onto US soil.

White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai said in a statement that President Trump "has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops. At the direction of the President, these companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible".

• Read more: Apple, NVIDIA, Tesla stock surge by double digits after President Trump pauses US tariffs

The 20 product categories listed in the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guidelines are reportedly except from the 125% tariff enforced by Trump on Chinese imports and the 10% baseline tariff on imports from other countries. However, a 20% tariff on all Chinese goods remains in effect.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: "President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacturing critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops. That's why the president has secured trillions of dollars in US investments from the largest tech companies in the world".

There are some big US tech companies cheering President Trump's latest moves on tariff exemptions, with companies like Apple that makes the majority of its products in China -- with 80% of its iPads, and more than half of its Mac systems made in China -- according to Evercore ISI.

• Read more: President Trump discusses 25% chip tariffs, Taiwan chip companies plan shift to US production

Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities told CNBC: "This is the dream scenario for tech investors. Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs". He added that "black cloud over tech since the day of liberation, because no sector was going to be more hurt than big tech".

Ives continued: "I think ultimately big tech CEOs spoke loudly, and the White House had to understand and listen to the situation that this would have been Armageddon for big tech if were implemented".