Trump Administration Considers Expanding Chip Tariffs to Laptops, Consoles, and Servers

Proposed Tariff Expansion

The Trump administration is reportedly weighing a second round of semiconductor tariffs that would broaden duties beyond just chips to include products built with them. These products encompass laptops, gaming consoles, and data center servers, according to eight unnamed sources familiar with the discussions who spoke to POLITICO.

Potential Removal of Exemptions

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick supports a structure that would limit duty-free chip imports based on a company's committed U.S. production volume. Additionally, Commerce officials have indicated in private talks that the exemptions from January's 25% tariff, which covered data centers, R&D, startups, and consumer devices, might not be carried over into the new framework. These exemptions were part of Proclamation 11002, signed on January 14, which imposed a 25% duty on a narrow set of advanced accelerators like Nvidia's H200 and AMD's MI325X.

Current Status and Context

A phase-in period for the new tariffs is currently under discussion, and the overall framework remains subject to substantial changes in the coming weeks. The January action was explicitly labeled as Phase 1, and a subsequent report from the USTR and Commerce in April covered tariff negotiations with Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Taiwan's January trade agreement applies zero tariffs on Taiwanese chips within 2.5 times a company's current U.S. manufacturing capacity while new plants are under construction, tightening to 1.5 times once built.

Industry Concerns

Taiwan produces over 90% of the world's leading-edge chips. Industry representatives involved in the talks have argued that a quota system tied to current domestic capacity would be insufficient to meet the high demand from hyperscalers during a period of record AI spending. TSMC, for example, has committed $265 billion to its Arizona site, but even at full build-out, it is projected to produce only about 30% of its most advanced capacity there.