U.S. President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he will unveil new tariffs on semiconductors in the coming week.
“We’re going to be announcing on semiconductors and chips, which is a separate category, because we want them made in the United States,” Trump said.
The semiconductor industry is set to generate US$700 billion in global sales, and the Commerce Department has been investigating the market since April to set the stage for tariffs.
Levies on imported chips are set to impact tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta Amazon with sharp cost increases as they plan to spend billions on the purchase of semiconductors to advance their artificial intelligence business.
Trump said the tariffs aimed to boost domestic manufacturing and commended Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s plans to expand its U.S. presence.
“You know, we have the biggest in the world, as you know, from Taiwan is coming over and spending $300 billion in Arizona, building the biggest plant in the world for chips and semiconductors,” he said.
In the same interview, Trump also announced that there will be updates to the pharmaceutical tariffs.
“We’ll be putting a initially small tariff on pharmaceuticals, but in one year — one and a half years, maximum — it’s going to go to 150% and then it’s going to go to 250% because we want pharmaceuticals made in our country,” Trump said.
This comes as Trump signed an executive order to impose duties on a slew of other countries' imports, with some trading partners facing steep hikes.
Goods from Taiwan are set to face a 20% tariff starting this week; however, this is a decrease from the 32% import tax he threatened on “liberation day”.
