Trade advisor Peter Navarro said carve-outs for smartphones and other tech products weren’t really exclusions from sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports.
Trump smartphone tariff measures ‘coming soon,’ Lutnick says
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that tariffs on smartphones and other electronics would come “soon.”
- “You want to call it an exemption – po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes,” Navarro said.
- Jamieson Greer, President Trump’s trade representative, said on CBS Face the Nation that electronics are “shifting from one bucket of tariffs to a different bucket of potential tariffs.”
WASHINGTON − After a whipsaw week that saw President Donald Trump make a temporary retreat on some tariffs amid wild stock market gyrations, a top trade advisor said it was all according toplan.
“This is unfolding exactly like we thought it would,” White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday after Trump exlcuded electronics from the 125% tariff he slapped on Chinese imports.
Navarro insisted the carve-outs for smartphones, hard drives, and other tech products issued late Friday weren’t really exclusions from the sky-high tariffs on Chinese imports.
“You want to call it an exemption – po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes,” he said.
‘A political tool’
Democrats have slammed the exemptions as a gift to wealthy tech CEOs that donated to Trump.
“If you’re an industry that doesn’t have political power or isn’t paying off Donald Trump, the tariff still applies,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in a video statement on Saturday.
“It’s not trade policy, it’s not economic policy, it’s just a political tool to enrich Donald Trump’s friends and screw the rest of us,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said on X that Apple CEO Tim Cook was “getting a big return on his investment” for donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
The retreat on tech products came as Trump’s tariff flip-flops sent the stock market on a roller coaster ride last week.
On Wednesday, Trump abruptly announced he would pause the reciprocal tariffs he had threatened to levy on countries worldwide for 90 days – other than tariffs on China, which he hiked up to 125%. The Dow tumbled 1,000 points on Thursday as the global economy braced for a trade war with China.
“We have a strategy here where the president says we’re going to charge them what they charge us,” Navarro said. The tariffs were announced “knowing full well that a lot of countries would come right to us and want to bargain.”
Smartphones and tablets and tariffs
In interviews on Sunday, Trump’s trade officials said the exemptions for tech products issued the next day did not mean Trump was ceding any ground, and that separate tariffs on the goods were soon to come.
Trump’s tariff pause brings little relief as recession fears linger
Donald Trump’s move to postpone most of his new tariffs for 90 days seems to have brought only fleeting relief for markets. After a huge rally on April 10, April 11 saw Asian stocks head lower again.
“They’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on ABC This Week.
Jamieson Greer, Trump’s trade representative, said on CBS Face the Nation that electronics are “shifting from one bucket of tariffs to a different bucket of potential tariffs.”
Navarro’s free trade feud with Elon Musk
Navarro also brushed off his feud last week with tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose electric car company, Tesla, could suffer amid the tariffs pushed by Navarro.
Musk said Navarro was “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” in an April 8 X post after the trade advisor implied Musk’s opposition to tariffs on China boiled down to Tesla using Chinese-made batteries.
“I’ve been called worse,” Navarro said in the Sunday NBC interview. “Everything’s fine with Elon.”