U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to newshounds alike Wind Pressure One on the the Lehigh Valley World Airport on August 03, 2025 in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Pictures
Then months of hypothesis, U.S. President Donald Trump has divulged extra of his semiconductor tariff plans, however his unedited ultimatum would possibly carry extra questions than solutions.
On Wednesday, Trump mentioned he’ll impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, however now not for corporations which might be “building in the United States.”
As semiconductors constitute an over $600 billion industry on the middle of the fashionable virtual economic system, any doable price lists stock immense weight.
On the other hand, mavens say the President has but to serve key main points at the coverage, which can in the end decide their complete have an effect on and goals.
“It’s still too early to pin down the impact of the tariffs on the semiconductor sector,” Ray Wang, analysis director of semiconductors, provide chain and rising generation at The Futurum Staff, advised CNBC.
“The final rule is likely still being drafted and the technical details are far from clear at this point.”
Large gamers just right, tiny gamers cooked?
Some of the largest questions for chip gamers and traders can be how a lot production an organization must decide to the U.S. to qualify for the tariff exemption.
The U.S. has been operating to onshore its semiconductor provide chain for a few years now. Since 2020, the arena’s biggest semiconductor firms reminiscent of TSMC and Samsung have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to building plants in the U.S.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday, James Sullivan, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Equity Research at J.P. Morgan, said this could mean most major chip manufacturers receiving exemptions.
If this is the case, the policy could have the effect of “continuing to consolidate market share amongst the largest cap players in the space,” Sullivan said.
Indeed, shares of Asian chip majors TSMC and Samsung, which have significant investments in the U.S., rose in Thursday morning trading following Trump’s announcement. Early this year, TSMC announced it could enlarge its investments within the U.S. to $165 billion.
Stocks South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix — that have additionally invested within the U.S. — have been additionally buying and selling up nearest a Korean industry envoy reportedly mentioned on radio that the duo can be released from the 100% price lists.
Past the query of exemptions, many alternative sides of the possible price lists stay concealed.
Talking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” on Thursday, Stacy Rasgon, senior U.S. semiconductor analyst at Bernstein, famous that many of the semiconductors that input the U.S. come within shopper items reminiscent of smartphones, PCs and vehicles.
Day Rasgon mentioned price lists on those imports is also manageable, broader price lists can be tougher to do business in with.
“What we don’t know with [Trump’s] comments on tariffs, is it just raw semiconductors? Are there going to be tariffs on end devices? Are you going to be looking at tariffs on components within end devices?,” Rasgon requested.
The doubt and questions round semiconductor price lists have been delivered to the leading edge nearest the U.S. Area of Trade began a national security investigation of semiconductor imports in April, simply as the field was once exempted from Trump’s “reciprocal” price lists.
The unclear language from the Trump management — regardless that now not invoked within the president’s unedited proclamations — may just theoretically be impaired to use vast price lists to a massive section of the electronics provide chain. It’s additionally concealed at the extent that semiconductor fabrics and production apparatus impaired to form chips would fall underneath the price lists.
Advanced provide chains
Attainable tariff methods is also difficult via the intricate and interdependent nature of the semiconductor provide chain.
Rasgon gave the instance of American chip fashion designer Qualcomm, which sends their designs to TSMC to be manufactured in Taiwan and nearest imported to the U.S.
“Does that mean those [chip imports] would not be tariffed, because they’re made at TSMC, and TSMC is building in the U.S.?… I don’t know. Hopefully that’s how it would be,” he mentioned.
Every other immense purchaser of semiconductors within the U.S. are cloud provider suppliers like Amazon Web Services and Google, which are essential to power Washington’s AI plans.
According to a recent report from ITIF, semiconductors give a contribution $7 trillion in world financial job yearly via understructure a dimension of downstream programs together with AI and “big data.”
In a possible signal of American firms looking for to advance their chip provide chains into the U.S., Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner, along Trump on the White area Wednesday, introduced that it’ll be provided chips from Samsung’s manufacturing plant in Texas.
The corporate additionally introduced an spare $100 billion in U.S. investments, elevating its overall funding constancy within the nation to $600 billion over the after 4 years.
