Trump Announces 100% Tariff on Chips

President Trump announced plans Wednesday for a 100% tariff on “all chips and semiconductors” — insisting that there would be an orderly economic transition despite potential major impacts on US businesses.

“We’ll be putting a tariff, approximately 100%, on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said at an Oval Office event with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who arrived to announce plans for $600 billion in new investments in the US.

Trump said he would exempt companies that have plans to transition their manufacturing to the US — a hint that the world’s largest chip manufacturer, Taiwan’s TSMC, which is building massive manufacturing plants in Arizona, would be spared.

“If you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge, even though you’re building and you’re not producing yet in terms of the big numbers of jobs and all of the things that you’re building. If you’re building there will be no charge,” Trump said.

“So 100% tariff on all chips and semiconductors coming into the United States. But if you’ve made a commitment to build, or if you’re in the process of building, as many are, there is no tariff.”

Trump described the duties as a way to hold accountable companies that backtrack on pledges to open US manufacturing plants.

“If, for some reason, you say you’re building and you don’t build, then we go back and get we added up, it accumulates, and we charge you at a later date, you have to pay, and that’s a guarantee,” Trump said.