Donald Trump prepares to apply tariffs of more than 25% for chips and that means one thing: much more expensive laptops

Donald Trump does not hesitate. At a press conference on Tuesday, the president of the United States Indian than your administration It could apply tariffs of about 25% to the car industry. But this is not the worst: the worst thing is that the pharmaceutical industry and The semiconductor They could be even more affected. In both cases, tariffs could be even greater than 25%.

What are tariffs. Tariffs are taxes that apply to foreign products. They are paid by the importer of the product, which in this case are the US companies and consumers, but not for the exporter, which may be anywhere in the world.

An example. Let’s give an example:

1. Acer, Taiwanese company, wants to sell its laptops in the United States.
2. Acer the factory in Taiwan, and sends them to the US.
3. When those laptops reach the US Customs, a US -based company (the importer, which may be the Acer division in the US, or a wholesaler, for example) takes possession of them.
4. The US customs applies tariffs. Let’s say it is 10%.
5. The importer (which is not Acer Taiwan) pays those tariffs to the US government. If the order is one million, the importer would have to pay $ 100,000.
6. It is then that the importer decides how to manage that extra cost. It can absorb the cost and reduce your profit margin, you can pass it to stores, which could increase the price for consumers, or you can negotiate with Acer Taiwan to make the original order come out something cheaper.

More details on April 2. In the case of cars tariffs, the pharmacological industry and Trump chips Indian that “I will probably tell you on April 2, but there will be around 25%” when asked about tariffs on the car industry. For Farma and Chips, Trump said “it will be 25% or more, and will grow substantially in the course of a year.” The US president claimed to want to give companies “time to come (to the US)” before announcing new import tariffs.

Manufacture here, or pay tariffs. All these measures are aimed at the same thing: avoid dependence on other countries to the maximum possible, boost companies to manufacture their products in the US (and make large investments in the country) and impose huge tariffs for those who do not.

The impact will be colossal. The measures raised by Trump will have huge consequences. Among other things, will aggravate the historical crisis that the European car is experiencing. Last year about eight million cars and light trucks in the US were imported, half of all sales in that country. Manufacturers like Volkswagen They would be especially affectedbut also great Asian manufacturers (not only China) like Hyundai.

We will pay more for (almost) everything. Experts are clear that these tariffs will have very important collateral effects, including the price increase for consumers and costs for these industries.

Portable 10% more expensive. In the case of chips, among the many affected are laptops prices. Jason Chen, CEO of Acer, Indian that these tariffs will cause that “we have to adjust the final price to reflect these tariffs. We believe that 10% will probably be the default increase for the price for import rates. It is very simple.”

Acer already considers manufacturing outside China. About 80% of the laptops that are imported in the US come from China. Trump imposed 10% tariffs in China this month, although they do not apply to products that abandoned China before February. Chen declared that they had already migrated part of the assembly of their computers outside China during Trump’s first mandate, when he imposed 25%tariffs. They are now looking for “different distribution chains beyond China”, and stressed that manufacturing in the US was “one of the options.”

Much ado about nothing? The truth is that Trump has already announced important tariffs For Canada and Mexico. They had to go into force on February 1but They have not done soand also the tax and aluminum taxes have been modified –No exceptions– And that theoretically will be applied as of March 12. A series of “were also announcedreciprocal tariffs“Last week, but they will not take effect until April. There is a lot of ads of tariffs, but for the moment little start -up (or none) of such measures.

Image | The White House | Laura Ockel

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