Last week, President Trump added products to the list of exclusions from the still-standing 10% April 2 tariffs and 125% tariffs on Chinese goods. As Rethink Trade Director Lori Wallach lays out in this Monday thread, the products newly getting a pass include cell phones, computers, monitors, and data storage devices. The April 2 tariff announcement already excluded microchips and related goods, reportedly in anticipation of a Section 232 investigation into semiconductors, which is expected to result in new tariffs for the sector. For more details about what might be going on here, check out The Washington Post’s “How Tim Cook helped Apple out of Trump’s tariff storm — for now,” which adds the details to Trump’s Monday comment, “I speak to Tim Cook, I helped Tim Cook recently.”
