Trump Says He’ll Announce Semiconductor And Chip Tariffs

The semiconductor industry’s rollercoaster twelvemonth continues pinch different awesome development.

President Donald Trump said connected CNBC’s Squawk Box connected Tuesday that his management is readying to denote tariffs connected semiconductors and chips arsenic soon arsenic adjacent week. However, nan specifics of these tariffs remains unclear.

Such tariffs could origin rather a disruption for U.S. hardware and AI companies. When nan U.S. CHIPs and Science Act was signed successful 2022 — providing $52 cardinal successful subsidies to boost home spot manufacturing — nan U.S. produced only astir 10% of world chips. Despite this mini manufacturing footprint, much than half of world semiconductor companies are headquartered successful nan U.S.

Since then, immoderate advancement has been made toward boosting home spot manufacturing. Both Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) person received backing from nan CHIPs Act. TSMC has besides committed to spending “at least” $100 billion complete nan adjacent 4 years connected spot manufacturing plants successful nan U.S.

But mounting up spot manufacturing plants takes time. Intel precocious announced it was delaying construction connected its Ohio spot manufacturing facility, again, highlighting nan challenges of quickly scaling up production.

The tariff announcement comes arsenic nan manufacture awaits nan administration’s determination connected AI spot export restrictions — rules that power which countries tin acquisition precocious semiconductors utilized successful AI systems.

The Trump management formally rescinded nan Biden administration’s spot AI export rules successful May. Those rules had established a country-specific, multi-tier attack to restricting spot exports based connected nationalist information concerns. The Trump management past released its AI Action Plan successful July, which emphasized nan request for nan U.S. to instrumentality spot export restrictions but was ray connected nan specifications of what that could look like.

According to reporting from Semafor citing manufacture sources, nan Trump management is now debating whether aliases not it should spell done pinch its plan to rescind and switch Biden’s AI export rules.

For much connected nan semiconductor industry’s tumultuous year, we’ve compiled a regularly-updated timeline of marketplace news since nan opening of 2025.

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