Smartphones get a tariff carve out (for now), China bans rare...

Smartphones get a tariff carve out (for now), China bans rare earth shipment to US

By Stephen Letts

Just a quick scoreboard update in the US versus Rest of the World tariff-fest.

After the US raised its overall tariffs on Chinese imports to 145% on Friday, China shot back raising its tariffs on US imports from 84% to 125%, adding that would be about it as "at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China".

The US then tinkered with, or as the Trump administration said "clarified", its original tariff barrage, carving out smartphones, laptops and some electronic devices from the new regime.

That may have been due to the calculation that found the tariffs would raise the cost of a new iPhone by around 30% from under $US1,200 to $US1,800, not exactly a popular move in the smart phone addicted US.

The whole electronics thing has yet to be bedded down with the White House saying, just to be clear, the clarification will be further clarified later today.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also waded into the spirit of clarification by noting the carve out "is not a permanent sort of exemption," and the tech products would be subject to separate sectoral tariffs along with semiconductors.

President Trump posted on social media that the electronics are "just moving to a different Tariff 'bucket'" and the administration will be "taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN."

Mr Lutnick added some clarification to the Presidential post noting, "He's saying they're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two"

"These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America," Mr Lutnick added.

China's reaction was along the lines of "whatever", or more officially China's Ministry of Commerce said it was a "small step for the US to correct its wrongful unilateral reciprocal tariffs."

China added, "Oh, and by the way, we are banning shipments of rare earths to the US — strategic metals the US has no local production in and needed in things like semi-conductor manufacture — immediately."

At least that was clear.