President Donald Trump’s ambiguous plans for 100% tariffs on computer chips that aren’t made in the U.S. are stoking confusion among businesses and trading partners — boosting stocks for leading semiconductor companies while leaving smaller producers scrambling to understand the implications.
“We are still waiting for official guidance,” said Limor Fried, founder and engineer at Adafruit Industries, a small electronics maker in New York.
The chips that go into Adafruit’s products come through U.S. sales and distribution companies as well as direct from companies in the Philippines and Taiwan.
If those chips aren’t exempt from tariffs, “it would increase the costs that go into our designs as the semiconductors are the most expensive component in our assemblies,” Fried said. “For many of these tariffs, we often have to wait until we get a bill to know our exposure, and then we adjust our pricing to account for the increases.”
The U.S. imports a relatively small number of chips because most of the foreign-made chips in a device — from an iPhone to a car — were already assembled into a product, or part of a product, before it landed in the country.