The tariff rate will go up to 100% on electric vehicles, to 50% on solar cells and to 25% on electrical vehicle batteries, critical minerals, steel, aluminum, face masks and ship-to-shore cranes beginning September 27, according to the US Trade Representative’s Office.
Tariff hikes on other products, including semiconductor chips, are set to take effect over the next two years.
The administration’s increases – which impact a relatively
small amount of US imports – come as Vice President Kamala Harris and former
President Donald Trump have clashed over tariffs on the campaign trail. Trump
is calling for sweeping new duties on all imports, while Harris has said that
his proposal would raise prices on American households.
The increases affected "a relatively small amount of US imports" but
Trump implemented sweeping tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese-made products when he was in office. President Joe Biden has kept those tariffs in place and, after the USTR finished a multiyear review earlier this year, decided to increase some of the rates on about $15 billion of Chinese imports.
The products that will now face increases are in line with Biden’s other economic policies aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing in industries including clean energy and semiconductor chips.
That's how this should be done, and would be if we did not have a fake tough guy in the White House. But President Trump went overboard on the tariffs he imposed, after which, unfortunately, mainland China retaliated effectively. Xi Jinping met visiting Spanish Prime Minister Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday and told him
that his country and the European Union should "jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices" of the Trump administration.
Sanchez, in turn, said that China's trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.
Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US - though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.
Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump's tariffs.
His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.
In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.
So the "whiny, little bitch," as the old Bill Maher previously had characterized our President, backed off as
US President Donald Trump's administration has exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from "reciprocal" tariffs, including the 125% levies imposed on Chinese imports.
US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late on Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.
The move comes after concerns from US tech companies that the price of gadgets could skyrocket, as many of them are made in China.
This is the first significant reprieve of any kind in Trump's tariffs on China, with one trade analyst describing it as a "game-changer scenario".
The exemptions - backdated to 5 April - also include other
electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells and
memory cards.
"This is the dream scenario for tech investors," Dan Ives, who is the global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, posted on X. "Smartphones, chips being excluded is a game-changer scenario when it comes to China tariffs."
Big tech firms such as Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft and the broader tech industry can breathe a huge sigh of relief this weekend, he added.
Even when Trump knows to pivot, it won't be to serve the public:
No exemptions though for the things poor people buy: inexpensive shoes, clothes, bedding, tableware.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 12, 2025
Some believe that the President was spooked by the completely unexpected drop in the bond market occasioned by announcement of the massive tariffs. But things have a way of turning out very personally for Donald Trump. And thee on again, somewhat off again process can work out very well for the First Gentleman. Fareed Zakaria explains
A detailed academic study of the tariffs in Trump’s first term found that “companies that made substantial investments in political connections to Republicans prior to and during the beginning of the Trump administration were more likely to secure exemptions for products otherwise subject to tariffs. Conversely, companies that made contributions to Democratic politicians had decreased odds of tariff exemption approval.” That study looked at more than 7,000 applications for exemptions from tariffs on China in the first term and found that just a $4,000 donation to Democratic candidates reduced the companies’ chances of being granted an exemption to less than 1 in 10. As Timothy Carney from the conservative think tank AEI notes, “Trump’s first election created a trade lobbying boom” — from 921 lobbying clients with lobbyists working on trade to an apex of 1,419 by 2019.
With the highest tariffs in the industrialized world, the American bazaar is now open. Countries and companies will descend on Washington to cut deals and gain carve-outs, exemptions and special terms. In the past few weeks, Vietnam has announced a flurry of measures designed to mollify the Trump administration and get a good trade deal. Among them: approval for Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate in the country and a plan to expedite a Trump Organization project. In fact, there are at least 19 Trump-branded real estate projects around the world that will be under development while he is president, and possibly many others in the works. Trump launched his own social media company and his own meme coin; other countries surely see this all as an invitation to invest — and to influence American foreign and economic policy.
Trump knows that whatever deals his Administration makes with individual countries, he and and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt can (and will) declare victory even if the resulting agreement leaves the USA worse off than before he announced his tariff policy. Whatever the outcome for our country, the other nation probably will be worse off than it was until recently, which the President will consider a win.
Still, Trump is nothing if not self-serving. The American bazaar is now open! The old James Carville would have quipped "it's the payoff, stupid." If there is an opportunity for corruption, Donald John Trump will recognize it, and will take it.
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