Donald Trump’s tariff regime keeps getting less and less robust. In the latest backtrack from the Trump administration following the repeated warning of the markets to chill out a bit, the US Customs and Border Protection published guidance late Friday night that introduced new exemptions for smartphones, computers, and other electronics—a major carveout for tech companies that were feeling the crunch.
The exemptions, as reported by Bloomberg, include popular devices like iPhones and MacBooks, as well as Android and Windows devices made overseas. It also includes hardware like hard drives, computer processors, memory chips, and graphics cards. Some have noted the exemption does not include video game consoles, which leaves things still pretty up in the air for the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2.
Notably, the exemptions apply universally, meaning these items coming into the US will not be subject to the 10% global tariff that currently applies to every nation, nor the 145% tariff that is currently levied against China. The exemption was also backdated to April 5, 2025, so just pretend this whole past week didn’t happen.
The exemption comes after another week of extremely volatile markets that seem to be pleading with Trump to stop harassing the nation’s top trade partner while the rest of the world side-eyes America and starts shifting its money elsewhere. Pretty much the only thing that has sent the markets bouncing back up in the last few weeks is even the tiniest of breadcrumbs suggesting that maybe Trump isn’t as pot-committed to the nonsensically calculated tariffs as he insists he is.
Trump left a little trail for investors, suggesting this type of exemption might be on the horizon on Friday when he told reporters aboard Air Force One that there could be “a couple of exceptions for obvious reasons” coming. He didn’t say what the obvious reasons were, but we can probably interpret that as “we’d like to stop the bleeding for some of our most profitable companies.”
The tech sector was certainly signaling that pain was coming. Apple reportedly airlifted 1.5 million iPhones to the United States from Inida to try to keep them from getting hit by the tariffs, and was warning that the prices of their devices could be going up soon. Other major tech players including Asus, Sony, and Nividia all started ticking up the retail price