Trump Vows 100% Tariff On Chips, Unless Companies Are Building In the US (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0178596974
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/2242231/trump-vows-100-tariff-on-chips-unless-companies-are-building-in-the-us
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/06/trump-tariffs-chips-companies.html
> "We're going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon. "But the good news for companies like Apple is if you're building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge," he said. "So in other words, we'll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge."
The remarks follow a recently announced commitment by Apple to [2]invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years to boost manufacturing in the U.S.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/06/trump-tariffs-chips-companies.html
[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/1448241/trump-apple-to-announce-new-100-billion-commitment-to-manufacturing-in-us
Who pays the tariffs ? (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be paid by those who buy the chips within the USA. It will not be paid by those who do not live in the USA. Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
Even if the chips were to be made in the USA building the fabs will take longer than he has left as president.
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> It will be paid by those who buy the chips within the USA. It will not be paid by those who do not live in the USA. Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
> Even if the chips were to be made in the USA building the fabs will take longer than he has left as president.
Yes but it will create a lot of robot jobs. Millions of jobs! The best jobs! China wants those jobs but they can't have them! Patriotic jobs! Big success! Succulent greatness!
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> It will be paid by those who buy the chips within the USA. It will not be paid by those who do not live in the USA. Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
Trump can fool 30% of the people all of the time, and an additional 20% of the people some of the time. While some might understand who pays for the tariffs, a lot of people simply don't understand such things, so will trust someone who can wave their small hands vigorously and sound convincing. So, yes, a lot of USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
> Even if the chips were to be made in the USA building the fabs will take longer than he has left as president.
You might believe that he will vacate the office in Jan 2029, but he is not talking like he plans to actually do so. He and his minions have even floate
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> You might believe that he will vacate the office in Jan 2029, but he is not talking like he plans to actually do so. He and his minions have even floated a few solutions that could allow him to stay on.
This is what the shenanigans in Texas are about. Trump quite openly asked for the elections to be gerrymandered there, and the Texan Republicans, who have a majority there, were more than happy to oblige. The Democratic walkout is to prevent the government there from having a quorum allowing it to pass t
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And even if things are made in the US again, they won't be much cheaper than the import good plus the tariff. Why leave money on the table? So Americans pay way more either way, nevermind the overwhelming negative impact on the entire world's economy. Getting your average maga person to understand this simple fact is unreasonably difficult.
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Its called the Great American Squeeze. They're GASsing all of us. That's their plan. Lower the standard of living by making things more expensive. Fudge the inflation numbers and the job numbers so that things look much better than they actually are.
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To be fair, nobody believed the inflation and jobs numbers before, despite them being put together by reputable economists. This just means they'll actually be as inaccurate as the critics pretended they were.
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> It will be paid by those who buy the chips within the USA. It will not be paid by those who do not live in the USA. Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
In this case, it's probably both.
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Yeah, this is the guy who claimed drug prices either are, or are about to be, lowered by 1500%.
The latter. (Score:2)
Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
He understands it quite well.
It does two things:
- serves as a regressive national sales tax, shifting the tax burden to poorer people.
- Gives him a big stick to fuck around with for extortion, punishing people he wants to hurt, and generally making him feel powerful.p. It is an Americanized version of VAT plus DMA. Instead of health care and social guard rails, you get to share your ID before buying porn
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Modded troll seriously? Wow.
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I see this is your first time on Slashdot. You'll noticed a lot of right-wing American nutters on here.
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> Even if the chips were to be made in the USA building the fabs will take longer than he has left as president.
From the summary:
or have committed to build
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> It will be paid by those who buy the chips within the USA. It will not be paid by those who do not live in the USA. Trump either does not understand that or thinks that USA citizens are too stupid to understand.
From available evidence, the typical MAGA does not understand who pays for tariffs.
How magnamous. (Score:3)
> Trump Vows 100% Tariff On Chips, Unless Companies Are Building In the US
Not putting an import tax on things not imported.
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Although I wouldn't put it past the current administration to try and put tariffs on products manufactured in "blue" states...
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There's no need to, Market forces will make business gravitate to "business-friendly" states with no state minimum wage law ($7.25 per hour Federal minimum wage applies) and non-existent protections for workers, non-compete agreements, and sales taxes on groceries. Why do you think all the factories are being sited in such states instead of California/Washington/Oregon. It's not because of the weather.
Another own-goal by the dumbass (Score:2)
Oh, that's going to help the US's "AI Strategy" immensely. And while some advanced chip manufacturing is starting to be done in the USA, I doubt you could build a computer with entirely US-made components unless you were willing to pay a lot more.
And of course, Asian countries can retaliate because they probably can make anything they need outside of the USA.
Why so cheap (Score:2)
Why stop at 100
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Trump probably does not understand the math and does not know you can go higher. Remember his "1000% cheaper" statement?
Why would you import chips if you weren't building (Score:2)
The only reason I can think of for importing semiconductors, apart from manufacturing, is if you are a repair shop, or if you are a hobbyist.
What is the point of heavily taxing repair shops and electronic hobbyists? Aren't they two things that we want to be encouraging?
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> What is the point of heavily taxing repair shops and electronic hobbyists? Aren't they two things that we want to be encouraging?
Just remember the person proposing this idea has bankrupt several casinos and is famous for not paying his bills.
But hey a woman who was a former prosecutor laughed so that certainly disqualified her.
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Product development: You do have to build prototypes stateside if you want to build quickly and keep your development plans secret. The company I worked for sourced all of the parts and had their own SMT production line. I suppose that's why Mouser and Digikey are still in business. If prototypes were built overseas and Fedex'd in, these companies would see a serious drop off in business.
Many factories due to come online in 3.5 years (Score:3)
> if you're building in the United States or have committed to build , without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge
I predict there will be many factories "committed to build" with completion dates after the next elections, and then many empty building on the market.
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>> if you're building in the United States or have committed to build , without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge
> I predict there will be many factories "committed to build" with completion dates after the next elections, and then many empty building on the market.
Will those buildings sit next to Foxconn's empty building in Wisconsin?
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On the bright side, Amazon will have plenty of cheap warehouse space 4 years from now when people are desperate to fill those empty factory buildings.
If the builders think ahead and overspec the power and cooling requirements, maybe they could also be used as data centers?
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IF there are elections in 2028. There might not be.
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Yes, I was being optimist, as it is a valid question if there will ever be free elections ever again in the USA. Still if I was a business in the USA I would probably gamble on the empty promise of a factory even if trump is made dictator for life given his short memory and unpredictable behavior which make actually investing in a factory a high risk path. Many companies are finding bribes to trump are only a short term fix. It is not what you have done for him but rather what have you done for him recen
What is he on about today? (Score:3)
Whatever it is he will have moved on to something else tomorrow. Too many grievances, not enough brain cells.
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This would be funny if he didn't wield immense power and have a literal cult following.
Well MAGA (Score:2)
Is it time to take the keys away from Grandpa yet?
Just remember, the republicans could have a vote tomorrow to take away cheeto's tariff hammer. But they won't because they're pussies who care more about power.
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If Congress cared about power that much, they wouldn't have relinquished so much of it to the executive branch over the years.
It is difficult to take it all back now. But they don't even have the will.
The constant uncertainty (Score:2)
Is wrecking our economy. It takes a while for the damage to really show up. But when it's this extreme we're not even going to make it through to the midterms.
The last time Trump was in charge he had a few relatively sane people holding him back and the heritage foundation didn't think they were in a position to do all the really crazy batshit stuff that they are doing now with wanton abandon.
I suspect most people here will be able to weather it for about 3 or 4 years. But within the first year of T
Steampunk anyone? (Score:1)
Maybe he's trying to encourage development of tech that doesn't use electronics?
So after failing and failing again ... (Score:2)
... he is now trying to force the issue? Yep, that will work. If you are in the US, you might want to make sure you have current computer hardware, as things might get very expensive soon.
But if you build outside the US... (Score:2)
Well this whole strategy is confusing... If I build outside of the U.S., then I don't need to import semiconductors, I just import completed circuit boards or assembled products. If I am importing semiconductors, then by default, doesn't that imply that I am assembling in the States? So who does this impact? The chip importer that sell direct to consumer? Not a real big market for that.
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You've already thought about it more than he did
Re:Add some chip sanctions pls (Score:4, Funny)
Not only that, but we need a googol percent tariff on dips to go with the chips!