On Wednesday, April 2, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would impose a new series of tariffs against trade partners. Rates will range from a baseline amount of 10% up to 49% for certain countries. These hikes are slated to go into effect starting April 5.
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A full list of the tariffs can be found on the Rapid Response 47 account on X, which is run by the Trump administration, and it details every single country that’ll affected. It’s nearly eight pages long, with the first two highlighting some of the biggest increases.
China, for example, will be hit with a 34% tariff. The European Union is going to see 20%. Vietnam is receiving one of the largest tariffs at 46%, only beaten out by Cambodia at 49% and Laos at 48%.
The numbers continue from here: Taiwan at 32%, Japan at 24%, South Korea at 25%, India at 26%, Venezuela at 15%, etc. The reason why I’m focusing so much on Asian countries is because many of the world’s large tech corporations do business in these regions. “Companies will pass on costs to US buyers, squeezing household budgets and cooling demand. The obvious risk is a slowdown in consumption that could rip through the tech industry,” writes Counterpoint Research.
Vietnam, for example, houses major manufacturing plants for Apple, which assembles iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and AirPods, just to name a few. “I guess the logic is ‘make it too expensive for smartphone OEMs to produce overseas and they’ll eventually shift to the US,’ says Neil Shah, VP of Research at Counterpoint Research. Meanwhile, Foxconn. headquartered in Taiwan, helps supply the world with smartphones, video game consoles, TVs, tablets, computers, communication networks, and hardware components.
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As NBC News pointed out, “it was not immediately clear whether those tariffs would be applied on all products or targeted at” specific items. That said, the effects of these new tariffs could be wide-reaching. It’s entirely possible that we could see steeper price hikes hit tech products amidst greatly inflating costs. While the price changes may not go into effect over the next few weeks, the months ahead will be a telltale sign of where the market is headed.
Customers at Sigma’s NYC event.
Tiernan Ray/ZDNET
President Trump has argued that the tariffs will encourage companies to invest in the United States. This has worked to some extent. Back in February, Apple announced it was making a $500 billion investment in the US over the next four years [to] grow its role in US manufacturing. This includes the creation of 20,000 new jobs and the building of a new server factory in Texas.
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Apple may be willing to invest in the United States, but it remains to be seen whether other companies will follow suit. Acer expressed interest in potentially shifting manufacturing to the US, but so far, nothing’s happened.
Future price hikes may take a while before hitting store shelves and online stores, but President Trump’s plans are already making waves as the stock market tumbles. According to CNBC, Apple’s stock prices “slid more than 7% in late trading Wednesday.” Nvidia, another tech company that manufactures in Taiwan, “fell about 4%.” Amazon took a big blow, dropping by roughly 6%.
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