Trump Imposes 25 Percent Tariff on Imports of Computing Chips
U.S. President Donald Trump enacted a 25 percent tariff on specific AI chips, including the Nvidia H200 AI processor and a comparable semiconductor from AMD known as the MI325X, through a new national security directive issued by the White House.
The declaration comes after a nine-month inquiry under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and focuses on various premium semiconductors that meet specific performance standards and their containing devices for import tariffs.
The initiative is a component of a larger strategy to motivate chip manufacturers to increase semiconductor production in the U.S. and reduce dependence on chip production.
"The United States presently produces only about 10 percent of the chips it needs, making it highly dependent on overseas supply chains, which poses a 'major economic and national security threat.'"
The White House stated in a fact sheet that the tariffs will be specifically targeted and will exclude chips and related devices brought into the U.S. for data centers—a significant user of AI chips—startups, non-data center consumer applications, non-data center civil industrial uses, and public sector applications in the U.S.
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According to the proclamation, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has extensive authority to apply additional exemptions. Shares of Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm dipped modestly in after-hours trading.
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In December, Trump announced he would impose tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports due to Beijing's "unreasonable" quest for chip industry supremacy, but postponed the implementation until June 2027.
That move followed a year-long "Section 301" unfair trade practices investigation into China's exports of "legacy," or older-technology chips to the U.S., launched by former President Joe Biden's administration.
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Questions had swirled around about the universe of products containing chips that would be hit by the tariffs, the tariff rates, and whether any countries, products, or companies would be exempt. Wednesday's announcement, coupled with the news from December, suggests a light touch from the administration on chip imports, for now.