TECH NEWS – You’re great if you can keep up with the U.S. government’s flip-flopping on tariffs…

On Friday, the Trump administration exempted smartphones and a lot of other computing hardware from the 145% tariffs on goods from China. Then, on Sunday, he seemed to backtrack on this on his social media platform (Truth Social), writing that there was no exemption, just that these product classes had been moved to a different tax bucket. Among other things, smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and monitors are said not to be affected, and 20 items are listed among the exemptions on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website. So PCs and their components are largely covered…

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC that these devices and products will instead be subject to separate tariffs that broadly cover computer chips. These will be imposed by about mid-May. Trump then told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that he would announce new tariffs on chips this week. On smartphones and computer hardware, Trump said there should be some flexibility and no one should be so rigid.

So the Trumps raised tariffs on most goods from China to 125% on top of the minimum 20% tariff (145% total), then exempted a group of computer and electronics products from the 125% tariff, then announced plans to reapply new tariffs on those exemptions, while hinting that some tech companies might get special treatment (he must have been told by Dell and HP, two US companies, to reconsider…).

It is now impossible to say what tariffs will apply to PC hardware and for how long these tariffs will be in place. Trump et al are apparently unwilling to insist on truly punitive tariffs on goods purchased by consumers, so the highest tariffs on PC hardware will not be very high. But that still means a 10-20% price increase…

Source: PCGamer, Truth Social, Reuters,