WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has made a big new attempt to boost manufacturing in the U.S. His government will soon slap tariffs on semiconductor imports from businesses that are not moving their production to the U.S. On Thursday, before a meal at the White House with the CEOs of some of the biggest digital companies, the news broke.
Trump has always used tariffs as a key part of his foreign policy. He has used them to put political pressure on other countries, renegotiate trade treaties, and get concessions from businesses and countries that provide goods to the U.S. His threat of tariffs has made the world economy less stable and the stock market more volatile.
“Yes, I’ve talked about it with the individuals here. We will charge companies that don’t come in tariffs on chips and semiconductors. “We will be putting a tariff very soon,” Trump told reporters, although he didn’t say how much or when. He went on to say that the tariff would be “fairly substantial,” but not “that high.” He also made it clear that corporations could escape the tax by “coming in, building, planning to come in” to the country.
This idea is a clear follow-up to Trump’s earlier threat to charge corporations who don’t invest in the US a 100% tariff on chip imports. He has said that the rates might go up considerably more. The goal of the move is to make the US less dependent on foreign supply chains and more technologically independent, which is a concern that both parties in Washington share.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was there when the president spoke. Trump said, “I would say Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape.” This is probably about Apple’s recent promise to invest $600 billion more in the U.S. over the next four years.
Major chipmakers from other countries, like Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, have already said they will invest a lot of money in US factories. This puts them in a position to avoid the additional levies.
There have been legal challenges to the president’s use of tariffs. His administration is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court for a quick hearing to keep his power to levy broad taxes under a 1977 legislation after a lower court threw out many of them.