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US President Donald Trump has spoken up at the Air Force Journalists first at Lehigh Valley on August 03, 2025 in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
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After months of speculation, US President Donald Trump told more his semiconductor tariff plans, but his latest threats could cause more questions than answers.
On Wednesday, Trump said he would introduce a 100% tariff for semiconductor and chips but not for company which are “built in the US”.
How semiconductors represent More than $ 600 billion in industry At the heart of the modern digital economy, any potential tariffs are of great weight.
However, experts say the president should still present key details of the policy that will eventually determine their full influence and purpose.
“It is still early to record the impact of tariffs on the semiconductor sector,” said Ray van, director of semiconductor research, supply chain and new technologies in Futurum Group.
“The final rule is probably still up, and at this point the technical details are far from clear.”
Big players are good, little players cooked?
One of the biggest questions for Chip and investors will be how much company’s production must take on the US to get the right to release from tariffs.
Semiconductor supply networks have been operating in the United States for many years. Since 2020 the world’s largest semiconductor companies such as Tsmc and Samsung made hundreds of billion dollars in the US
Speaking in front of “Squawk Box Asia” CNBC, on Thursday, James Sullivan, the head of the Asian -Tsikhakani shares of JP Morgan, said that this could mean that most large chips produce exceptions.
In this case, the politician may lead to “continuing the consolidation of the market share among the largest players in space,” Sullivan said.
Indeed, shares of Asian Chip Majors TSMC and Samsung, which have significant investments in the US, Rose on Thursday morning in trades after Trump’s announcement. Early this year TSMC announced This will expand its investment in the US to $ 165 billion.
South Korean shares Samsung and SK Hynix – which also invested in the US – also traded after the Korean trade messenger said on the radio that the duo would be released from 100% tariffs.
Release from what?
In addition to the issue of release, many other aspects of potential tariffs remain unclear.
Speaking over “Squawk Box Asia” CNBC, on Thursday, Stacey, a senior US semiconductor analyst in Bernstein, noted that most of the semiconductors in the United States entered the US goods such as smartphones, PCs and cars.
For example, in 2024, the US imported $ 46.3 billion in semiconductors – only about 1% of all US imports, reports Fund of Information Technology and Innovation.
While the acne said that tariffs for this import can be managed, and the wider tariffs will be more difficult to fight.
“What we don’t know with the comments (Trump) to the tariffs is just raw semiconductors? Will there be tariffs on the final devices?
Confusion and issues around semiconductor tariffs were brought to the fore after the US Department of Commerce Investigation of national security semiconductor imports in April as in the sector liberated From the “mutual” tariffs of Trump.
The fuzzy language of the Trump administration – although not called in the latest statements by the president – can theoretically be used to apply wide tariffs to the huge electronics supply chain. It is also unclear how semiconductor materials and production equipment used to produce chips fall under tariffs.
Difficult supply chains
Potential tariff strategies can also be complicated by a bizarre and interdependent nature of the semiconductor supply chain.
The stroll cited the example of the American Designer chips Qualcomm, which sends its designs to TSMC to be manufactured in Taiwan and then imported to the US
“Does this mean that those (importing chip) will not be raised because they are made at TSMC and TSMC is building in the US? … I don’t know. Hopefully it would be,” he said.
Another major buyer of semiconductors in the US is the suppliers of cloud services as Amazon Web -services and GoogleWhat are the AI plans in Washington.
According to the recent report With ITIF, semiconductors make $ 7 trillion annually in the world economic activity, underlie a number of applications down, including AI and “Big Data”.
In a potential sign of American companies seeking to transfer their chips to the US, Apple CEO Tim Cook, together with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, announced that chips from the Samsung production plant in Texas would be delivered.
The company has also announced an additional $ 100 billion in investment in the US, increasing total investment commitments in the country to $ 600 billion over the next four years.
