Trump Exempts Phones, Computers, Other Electronics From Reciprocal Tariffs

Tech companies like Apple stand to gain relief from the exemption.

Apple iPhone 16 on display at an Apple store in New York on April 4, 2025. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

President Donald Trump exempted a range of everyday products, specifically in the electronic category, from reciprocal tariffs while importing into the United States.

Items excluded from reciprocal tariffs include smartphones, computers, servers, laptops, tablets, motherboards, processors, memory modules, machines used for manufacturing semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, flat panel displays, and related devices, according to updated guidance from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection published on April 11.

The items will be exempt from tariffs imposed on countries by Trump, and the 145 percent tariff imposed on China, which is the major manufacturer and supplier for all these components.

The tariff relief will be a boost for tech companies like Apple, whose shares had fallen since Trump announced the implementation of tariffs on April 2.

Apple’s stock price declined nearly 23 percent as it fell from $223.89 on April 2 to $172.42 on April 8. The company’s market capitalization loss amounted to almost $640 billion. It has since recovered partially, trading at $198.15 at the time of publication.

Other items included in the announcement are routers, modems, network switches, SSD storage devices, USB drives, SD cards, display modules like LCD, OLED, computer monitors, certain transistors, solar cells, LEDs, microchips, microprocessors, memory chips, and more.

Trump announced reciprocal tariffs in retaliation for trade barriers levied by countries importing U.S. goods. A baseline global tariff of 10 percent was enforced along with country-specific customized tariffs based on their trade stances towards the United States.

Upon announcing the tariffs, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries not to retaliate.

China refused to comply, and hit back with tariffs of its own against the United States, starting a trade war, which has now culminated in a 145 percent tariff on the Asian manufacturing hub. China has again hit the United States with a 125 percent tariff.

Meanwhile, Trump has paused tariffs for all other countries in order to negotiate better trade deals for the United States.

Trump’s tariffs have also triggered volatility in U.S. and global markets, impacting bonds and treasury yields.

Beijing is trying to counteract the adverse impacts of the trade tariffs via a depreciation of the Chinese yuan, analysts told The Epoch Times.

On April 8, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, set the yuan’s central parity rate at 7.2038, marking the first time since September 2023 that the rate has surpassed the 7.20 threshold.

As of April 11, the exchange rate is approximately 7.291 yuan per USD.

The forced depreciation of yuan is one of the reasons why Trump imposed harsher penalties on the regime, along with stealing IP, dumping products in foreign markets, and maintaining a large trade imbalance with the United States.

Cindy Li contributed to the report.