Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sowed further confusion about President Donald Trump’s tariffs on tech products on Sunday.
Speaking with ABC’s This Week, Lutnick said that the technology exemption from the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs on China was only temporary—tech companies should expect to see the levies hit under a “semiconductor tariff” at a later date.
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” Lutnick said. “We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels—we need to have these things made in America. We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us."
ADVERTISEMENT
Trump promised certain sectoral tariffs on items like pharmaceuticals in the coming weeks. The administration has already placed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, aluminum, and cars.
Still, Lutnick’s comments marked a reversal from the administration’s position last week. United States Customs and Border Protection posted a notice on Friday that smartphones, computers, solar cells, TVs, and other tech products were exempt from Trump’s tariffs on China and his global 10 percent levy, marking a win for companies like Apple and other manufacturers who have rooted their production lines abroad.
Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino posted on X that Lutnick’s comments were causing “significant division” inside the White House. “I am told plenty of people really believe he is ‘off message’ of trying to create a trade regime that involves negotiations even with China and actions that don’t roil the markets including the all important bond market,” he wrote.
Lutnick also said he’d let Vice President JD Vance speak for himself after Vance called Chinese workers who assemble such products “peasants” in a Fox & Friends interview last week.
“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” he said. China called his remarks “ignorant and impolite.”
“Can you explain to me what the vice president was saying not long ago when he referred to the Chinese people as peasants?” moderator Jonathan Karl asked. ”This is something that we heard the Chinese say was ignorant and disrespectful."
““No, I’m just going to step back and really just leave the vice president to let him defend himself,” Lutnick said. “He knows what he meant.”
