From Apple to Nvidia, United States tech companies have received a temporary exemption from President Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs. For other businesses, the damage imposed by existing levies on Chinese exports may prove fatal.
While Trump stepped back from the edge for most countries – announcing a 90-day pause on the bulk of his “reciprocal” tariffs on Wednesday – he doubled down on China, eventually increasing import taxes on its goods to 145 percent.
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Trump moves to put tariffs on chips and drugs, floats pause on auto duties
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Are US-made cars spared from Trump’s auto tariffs?
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Nvidia commits to $500bn AI server production in the US
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China says US tariff exemptions ‘small step in correcting wrong practice’
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Trump has pitched his protectionist agenda as essential for reviving US industry. However, many US firms have grown used to cheap imports from China. For many of them, prices will rise and profits will fall.
Beijing has also responded to Trump’s moves with retaliatory tariffs of its own, now at 125 percent. US exports to China, and agricultural products in particular, will be hit badly by China’s blanket levy.
Here is the state of trade ties between the world’s two largest economies and the US companies that could be worst affected:
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State of US-China trade
Despite growing tensions between the US and China, Washington and Beijing remain major trading partners.
According to data from the Office of the US Trade Representative, the total goods trade between the US and China stood at $582.4bn in 2024. After Canada and Mexico, China is America’s third largest trading partner.
US imports from China totalled $438.9bn while its exports the other way tallied in at $143.5bn. The upshot is that the US trade deficit with China was $295.4bn last year, bigger than for any other country.
On Friday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was increasing tariffs on US goods from 84 percent to 125 percent, reiterating that Beijing would “fight to the end” shortly after Washington raised US duties on Chinese imports to 145 percent.
Late that same day, the Trump administration announced temporary exemptions for smartphones, solar panels and other electronic products like semiconductor chips – most of which are made in China – from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which he has said are meant to level the playing field with trading partners who impose duties on US goods and run trade surpluses with the US.
China’s government welcomed the exemptions and urged Trump to go further. However, the US president has said those products will ultimately be subject to their own different levy. As of now, they are still subject to the 20 percent tariffs that Trump imposed on all Chinese goods before April 2.
In the meantime, companies will be forced to pass down at least some of Trump’s tariffs onto consumers to try to preserve their profit margins. That will result in higher inflation and lower business output.
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According to an analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, tariffs could cause 740,000 people to lose their jobs across the US by the end of 2025. But which sectors will be most exposed to these trade disruptions?
Textiles and apparel
The price of Nike trainers, Levi jeans and Gap T-shirts will almost certainly rise in the US as tariffs undermine the Asian factory hubs that underpin the global clothing industry.
In 2024, factories in China, Vietnam and Indonesia made 95 percent of all Nike footwear. Trump has already introduced 145 percent tariffs on China while Vietnam and Indonesia currently face 10 percent tariffs, which could go up in July if they don’t succeed in striking a trade deal with Washington by then.
Vietnam, in particular, is seen as a major indirect source of Chinese imports, both by rerouting Chinese goods through Vietnamese ports and by using Chinese parts in its exports to the US.
Gap is also highly exposed to production processes in Vietnam. Since Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff announcement on April 2, Gap shares have fallen by 14 percent. For Nike, it’s 14.7 percent.
Elsewhere, Levi’s stock price has plunged by 10.6 percent.
Smartphones and semiconductors
On Friday night, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a notice exempting some technology products from the tariffs placed on Chinese goods.
The CBP listed 20 product categories, including computers, smartphones and automatic data processors. It also included semiconductor equipment, memory chips and flat panel displays.
The exemptions were a welcome relief to major technology firms, including Apple, which relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing. But even with all post-April 2 tariffs on them waived for now, these electronic goods still face 20 percent tariffs that Trump had imposed on them before April 2.
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Trump has also said the exemptions are temporary, and new tariffs might be coming soon. Additionally, on Monday he announced an investigation into the national security implications of importing semiconductors and chip-making equipment, injecting new insecurities for electronics firms.
Supply chains in general are hard to move. For electronic goods, they are particularly difficult to replace – lining up industrial processes across different locations requires time and investment.
Bradley Saunders, a North America analyst at Capital Economics, told Al Jazeera that technology goods assembly processes have been “built up over years. … Markets have found the most efficient supply chains that they can.”
For now, Apple outsources most of its assembly operations to China. Smartphone companies are not alone. Almost 90 percent of gaming consoles sold in the US by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been shipped in from China.
Elsewhere, Nvidia relies heavily on components from China. The technology giant relies on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to manufacture its cutting-edge graphics cards and AI chips.
Apple and Nvidia led a broad advance across US stock markets after Trump announced his recent exemptions. According to Saunders, any new tariffs could hit US technology sectors “hard”.
US agricultural exporters
Trump’s first trade war with China from 2018 to 2019 resulted in billions of dollars of lost revenue for American farmers. “The agriculture industry always tends to lose out in trade wars,” Saunders said.
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He pointed out that “about 15 percent” of US farm exports went to China in 2024. The soya bean sector, in particular, stands to lose because China is its largest export market.
When Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in his first presidential term, Beijing retaliated by buying soya beans from other countries like Brazil. It also imposed retaliatory tariffs of its own. This time around, those tariffs are five times higher.
The American Soybean Association has publicly opposed Trump’s tariffs on China, and soya bean farmers have warned that many in the industry could go out of business if the trade war continues.
The US has more than 500,000 soya bean producers, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture. That includes at least 223,000 full-time jobs supported by the soya bean industry, according to a 2023 report for the National Oilseed Processors Association and the United Soybean Board.
The industry is worth $124bn in the US. That’s more than the entire economy of Kenya or Bulgaria.
Corn and pig farmers have also been urging the Trump administration to step back from its tariff spat. Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson Foods are three of several large US food companies that will likely lose export earnings from China.
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