For months, the Trump administration has warned that semiconductor tariffs are coming soon, leaving the tech industry on pins and needles after a chaotic year of unpredictable tariff regimes collectively cost firms billions.
The semiconductor tariffs are key to Donald Trump’s economic agenda, which is intended to force more manufacturing into the US by making it more expensive to import materials and products. He campaigned on axing the CHIPS Act—which provided subsidies to companies investing in manufacturing chips in the US—complaining that it was a “horrible, horrible thing” to “give hundreds of billions of dollars” away when the US could achieve the same objective by instead taxing companies and “use whatever is left over” of CHIPS funding to “reduce debt.” However, as 2025 winds down, the US president faces pressure on all sides to delay semiconductor tariffs, insiders told Reuters, and it appears that he is considering caving.
According to “two people with direct knowledge of the matter and a third person briefed on the conversations,” US officials have privately told industry and government stakeholders that semiconductor tariffs will likely be delayed.
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