US President Donald Trump speaks on 6 August 2025 during an event with Apple CEO Tim Cook at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.
Win McCamy | Getty images
After months of speculation, US President Donald Trump has more divided his semiconductor tariff plans, but his latest hazards may have more questions than answers.
On Wednesday, Trump said that he would impose 100% tariffs on the import of semiconductor and chips, but not for this Companies These are “construction in the United States”.
Represent one as semiconductor More than $ 600 billion industries In the center of the modern digital economy, any possible tariffs have massive weight.
However, experts say that the President is yet to provide important details on the policy, which will eventually determine their full impact and goals.
“It is still too early to reduce the impact of tariffs on the semiconductor sector, Ray Wang, a semiconductor, supply chain and research director of emerging technology in the Future Group.
“The possibility of the final rule is still being prepared and technical details are clear at this point.”
Big players are cooked good, small players?
One of the biggest questions for chip players and investors will be how much a company needs to build for the US to qualify for tariff exemption.
The US has been working to include its semiconductor supply chain for many years. Since 2020, the world’s largest semiconductor companies TSMC And Samsung has a convention of hundreds of billions of dollars for the construction of plants in America
Talking to CNBC’s “Squalk Box Asia” on Thursday, JP Morgan Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Equity Research at Morgan said James Sulivan, “It may be meant that most of the major chip manufacturers who receive the discounts.”
If this is the case, the policy may have the effect of continuing to strengthen the market share in the largest cap players in space, “Sulivan said.
Indeed, the Asian Chip Major TSMC and Samsung shares, which have significant investment in the US, increased trade on Thursday morning after Trump’s announcement. Earlier this year, TSMC Announced This will expand its investment in the US up to $ 165 billion.
Shares Shares Samsung and SK Hinix of South Korea – who have also invested in the US – a Korean business messenger allegedly stated on the radio that the pair would be exempted from 100% tariff.
What a discount on?
Beyond the question of discount, many other aspects of potential tariffs are unclear.
Speaking at CNBC’s “Squalk Box Asia”, on Thursday, Bernstein’s Senior US Semiconductor Analyst Stacey Rasgon said that most of the semiconductor smartphones, PCs and cars entering the US come inside.
For example, in 2024, the US imported a semiconductor of $ 46.3 billion – only about 1%of all American imports, Information technology and innovation foundation,
While Rasgon said that tariffs on these imports can be manageable, it would be difficult to deal with broad tariffs.
“Don’t we know with the comments on tariffs (Trump’s) comments, is it just raw semiconductor? Are you going to be tariffs on end equipment? Are you going to see the tariff on components within the end equipment?” Rasgan asked.
Confusion and questions around the semiconductor tariff were brought at the forefront after the US Department of Commerce started the forefront. National security check Semiconductor imports in April, as the sector was Exempted From Trump’s “mutual” tariff.
The ambiguous language from the Trump administration – though not invited to the latest announcements of the President – can be theoretically used to apply wide tariffs in a huge section of electronics supply chain. It is also not clear on the fact that semiconductor materials and manufacturing equipment used for the manufacture of chips are under tariffs.
Complex supply chains
Possible tariff strategies can also be complicated by complex and interdependent nature of the semiconductor supply chain.
Rasgan gave the example of American chip designer Qualcomm, which sends their design to TSMC to be manufactured in Taiwan and then imported to America
“Does this mean that those (chip imports) will not be targeted, as they are created in TSMC, and TSMC is building in America? … I don’t know. Hopefully how it will happen,” he said.
Another big buyer of semi -circulators in the US is cloud service provider like Heroic Web services and GoogleWhich are necessary to power Washington’s AI plans.
According to one recently Report From ITIF, semiconductors contribute $ 7 trillion to the annual global economic activity by underlining a series of downstream applications, including AI and “Big Data”.
In the potential indication of American companies, they are demanding to move their chip supply chains to the US, Apple On Wednesday, CEO Tim Cook announced that it would be supplied chips from Samsung’s production plant in Texas at the White House on Wednesday.
The company announced an additional $ 100 billion in US investments, increasing its total investment commitments to $ 600 billion in the next four years.
