Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Thursday the United States will soon put a “fairly substantial tariff” on semiconductors coming into the country, after previously threatening a 100-percent levy on the chips. “We will be putting a tariff very shortly,” Trump said at a White House dinner with tech industry executives. “Not that high, but fairly substantial tariff.” He did not give a timetable or details for the new levy, which he has repeatedly threatened in the past to be enacted.
Trump in early August sparked volatility in Asian chipmaker shares with talk of a 100-percent tariff on semiconductors from firms that do not invest in the United States. “We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100 percent on chips and semiconductors, but if you’re building in the United States…there’s no charge,” Trump said at the time.
The United States and China are locked in a high-stakes race to develop the high-end semiconductors used to power artificial intelligence systems. Arisa Liu, senior semiconductor researcher at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said in August that a heavy US chip tariff would impact the “strategic direction of global semiconductor companies.”
Trump’s latest tariff talk comes on the heels of the president saying he will seek a swift ruling from the Supreme Court as his administration pushes to overturn a court decision that found many of his tariffs illegal. The appellate court, however, only considered the legality of his most sweeping tariffs and not sector-specific levies — such as those on steel and, potentially, semiconductors — which are viewed as on firmer legal footing.
© 2024 AFP
