President Trump says no tariff exception for electronics

U.S. President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday that “there was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday”, saying electronics products are "moving to a different tariff ‘bucket’”.

Trump said the U.S. “is taking a look at semiconductors and the whole electronics supply chain in the upcoming national security tariff investigations”.

“These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs,” he said, stressing “nobody is getting ‘of the hook’ for the unfair trade balances”.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC News that those items would be subject to new semiconductor tariffs that will likely come in a month or two. These tariffs are separate from the reciprocal tariff policy announced by President Trump earlier this month.

“So what President Donald Trump's doing is he's saying they're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs," he explained.

The new tariffs would drive manufacturing back to the U.S., he predicted, noting these products are of national security importance and need to be made in America.

Trump on April 2 announced a new wave of global impositions. However, on April 9, he dropped his reciprocal tariffs for countries reaching out to the U.S. to negotiate to 10% for 90 days. The 90-day reprieve is applied to nearly 90 nations except for China.

According to a notice from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Friday (April 11), electronics imported to the U.S. will be exempt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.

Smartphones, computers, solar cells, flat-panel TV displays and semiconductor-based storage devices, are among the exempted products. The move is seen as favorable for tech giants such as Apple, Samsung, HP, Dell Technologies, and Microsoft, which manufacture electronic products outside the U.S.

In response, China’s Ministry of Commerce described the U.S. tariff exemption as “a small step” and urged the U.S. to completely abolish the reciprocal tariffs. Currently, the U.S. imposes reciprocal tariffs of 125% on Chinese goods.

U.S. remains Vietnam’s biggest electronics buyer

In Q1, the group of computers, electronic products, and components was the largest contributor to Vietnam's total export value, reaching $21.1 billion, up 29.2% year-on-year. The U.S. was Vietnam’s largest importer of these items.

Exports of these items to the U.S. exceeded $7.4 billion in Q1, up 48.2% compared to the same period last year. This also represented Vietnam's largest export category to the U.S., accounting for 23.8% of the Southeast Asian country’s total export value.

The General Statistics Office (GSO) reported that the U.S. was Vietnam’s largest export market in Q1, with export value hitting $31.4 billion.

In the first two months of the year, six export categories to the U.S. recorded revenues of at least $1 billion. Notably, computers, electronic products, and components led with $4.33 billion, up 33.7% year-on-year. Phones and components brought home $1.95 billion, down 15.4%.

In the January-March period, Vietnam ran a trade surplus of $27.3 billion with the U.S., up 22.1% from the same period last year.

The country has been seen as a manufacturing hub in the global supply chain, attracting major technology players such as Samsung and Apple.

South Korean giant Samsung Electronics had invested $23.2 billion in Vietnam by mid February this year, making it the largest foreign investor in the country. The number of Vietnamese vendors in Samsung Vietnam ecosystem had reached 306. Samsung’s latest investment in Vietnam was SDV pouring $1.2 billion in making displays in Bac Ninh province.

In 2024, Samsung Vietnam earned a revenue of $62.5 billion, including an export income of $54.4 billion.

Meanwhile, Apple had spent nearly VND400 trillion ($15.49 billion) since 2019 via supply chains in Vietnam, and more than doubled annual spending in the country during the same period, CEO Tim Cook said in April 2024.

With over 70 factories of Apple suppliers, over 5,000 authorized stores, and 40 distribution partners, Apple had generated jobs for about 200,000 workers in Vietnam, he added.

South Korean chaebol LG’s key plants in Vietnam, namely LG Innotek Vietnam Hai Phong, LG Electronics Vietnam Hai Phong, and LG Display Vietnam Hai Phong, recorded a total revenue of KRW14,987 billion ($10.3 billion) in 2024, up 9.63% year-on-year.

The GSO said the electronics industry accounts for 17.8% of Vietnam’s total industrial sector, with production largely focused on electronic products, computers, and optical devices.

Vietnam and the U.S. have agreed to start negotiations on a bilateral trade deal that will cover tax issues, hours after President Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on April 9.