Smartphones, computers, flash drives, semiconductors and solar cells will be exempt from the Trump administration’s wide-ranging tariffs on China and other nations, according to guidance from U.S Customs and Border Protection released late Friday night.

The policy is a boon to U.S. tech companies such as Apple, which produces most of iPhones in China.

Tech companies, and the net worth of their billionaire CEOs, were among those hardest hit when markets tanked on the tariff announcement. But, now Trump appears to be offering a helping hand by exempting some products from the 125 percent tariff he left on China.

A handful of tech stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Netflix, Amazon, Meta and Google parent Alphabet make up over a quarter of the value of the S&P 500 at any given time — and all of these companies would face major financial challenges if global electronics supplies were hit with sustained tariffs.

The Friday announcement is the latest sudden adjustment in a tariff policy that’s changed every few days, after Trump announced on Wednesday a 90-day pause on a series of “reciprocal” tariffs on U.S. trading partners that rattled financial markets, while increasing tariffs on China to an effective rate of 145 percent and maintaining a baseline 10 percent tariffs on all countries that hadn’t retaliated against the U.S.

Despite attempting to soften the financial blow of the tariff agenda, some fear the policies have set the U.S. on a course for a recession.

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  • OBJECTION!
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    14 days ago

    It’s becoming more and more clear that all these conflicting announcements are to allow Trump and his cronies to profit off insider trading. Kind of insane how blatant it is, short the market, announce tariffs, sell the short, pause the tariffs (except for China), buy tech stock, announce tech will be exempt, they gotta be making crazy bank.

    • Omega
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      3014 days ago

      It doesn’t for local businesses, so effectively he created these tariffs for nothing, the original purpose is now unable to be realised and the aftereffects will lead to bankruptcy of smaller businesses and companies will prefer to open factories literally everywhere else

      • mub
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        2214 days ago

        Trump achieved a short term goal with the insider trading tactic. Let’s see if he does it again.

      • Walican132
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        714 days ago

        Yeah. I backed a board game recently on Kickstarter poor guy shared in a new update he got hit with a 60k charge bringing over stock for a previous release. Like shit man that’s awful for a small business.

      • @[email protected]
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        313 days ago

        Enabling the Capitalist tendency for monopolization is not “for nothing”, it’s a necessity of the system.

        As those smaller businesses go out of business, their leaders will either be scooped up under the lead of larger business, or they will be forced to return to the mass labour workforce, either way their market now belongs to the higher up capitalists and their new role is ensuring profits for those bosses.

    • Carl [he/him]
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      2014 days ago

      I wouldn’t go that far. China makes something like 80% of the intermediate products used in “American” manufacturing, so I’d still expect price increases across the board.

  • circuitfarmer
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    2414 days ago

    I’m sure all the “now we are gonna manufacture iPhones in the US!” conservatives will raise their displeasure with this any day now.

  • @[email protected]
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    512 days ago

    Trump now has a “make stock go up/down” button he can push whenever he wants to, for any section of the market.
    Simply post “Tariffs now 100% on X” or “Tariffs paused”.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      512 days ago

      They’re now saying these electronics will be tariffed separately lol. They’re just doing blatant insider trading

    • @[email protected]
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      13 days ago

      I don’t think that China need anything from the US, but the US need almost everything from China and the rest of the world. All their tech depends on chips and raw materials from the Asiatic market

      • @[email protected]
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        112 days ago

        I don’t think that China need anything from the US

        They do like their money. The US basically funded their industrialisation, and keeps doing so.

        • @[email protected]
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          212 days ago

          They funded it, but currently China don’t really US support anymore, their tecnology is even superior as the US one.

    • Karyoplasma
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      212 days ago

      Nothing. They commented that it’s a small step to correct a huge mistake tho. They really got the knack of how to fake-compliment idiots in a patronizing way lol