We have known that the trade wars between China and US have been ever escalating. While Huawei was the company which suffered due to this war, they have now been excluded from the US block list. Also, the US has announced that they will restart talks with China regarding trade and there were reports of those talks restarting as well. However, US President Trump has tweeted that a “small” tariff of 10% will be levied on products imported into the US from China.
Now, this is expected to not only impact the US-China ties but is also expected to increase the price of goods. According to an estimate, $300 billions of goods is imported from China into the US. Interestingly, this also includes Apple iPhones too which means that the prices of Apple’s products might go up by 10%.
However, the products to be affected most because of this new tariff are PC laptops. We already got reports earlier that makers such as HP, Dell and others have said the tariff could be terrible for the PC industry. And with this tariff, we expect the manufacturers to increase prices of their imported products.
With this move, the US government is also trying to discourage US companies from importing Chinese products. We have also learnt that Apple has shifted some of the iPhone production to Taiwan and other countries. Now, most of the companies could do the same so as to avoid being hit by 10% tariffs.
Apart from this, you should also note that there is a 25% tariff being levied on the $250 billion goods already coming to the US from China. While the 25% tariff was applicable only to accessories such as chargers and cables, this 10% tariff will be applicable to MacBooks, iPhones and other electronic items as well. Interestingly, Foxconn has already confirmed it can move the entire iPhone production outside of China if needed by Apple.