So far, the impact of Donald Trump’s trade war with China has mostly only been felt in the markets. The worst is yet to come for consumers, according to Pegatron, a Taiwanese company that plays a key role in the supply chain of Apple and other electronics companies like Dell. An executive from the company, speaking to Reuters, warned that Trump’s on-again, off-again, add another 25% for retaliation approach to tariffs will likely lead to shortages as we head toward summer.
“Within two months, shelves in the United States … might resemble those in third-world countries, where people visit department stores and markets only to find empty shelves, all because everyone is waiting and seeing,” Pegatron chairman T.H. Tung told Reuters.
Obviously, the extremely high 145% tariff that the US placed on China plays a major role in the potential shortfall of devices—that’s a pretty major tax for companies to pay and likely pass onto consumers. But the bigger issue may simply be the uncertainty around what exactly the Trump administration is going to do next, which makes it difficult for any company to plan more than a few months ahead. “We won’t immediately adjust our long-term plans just because of two or three months of tariff changes. Manufacturing bases require long-term planning,” Tung said.
You can see this play out pretty clearly with Apple. When Trump first announced his “reciprocal” tariffs earlier this month, which initially included a 34% tax on imports from China, Apple started scrambling to move its current stock and manufacturing supply chain around in a way that would minimize the pain. The company moved $2 billion worth of iPhones from India to the US before the tariffs hit, and then started the pretty complicated process of shifting manufacturing out of China (as Trump cranked the tariffs all the way up to a cartoonish 145% tax) to India, where tariffs are 10%. Even India could see an additional 26% added by July if no deal is struck.
About two weeks into the trade war, Trump announced his administration would exempt devices like smartphones and computers from the current tariff regime, which provided a reprieve to companies like Apple and their suppliers…for exactly one day, before Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said actually that is only temporary and new sector-specific tariffs will go into effect in a month or two. What will that tariff be? Will it ever actually come to fruition? And if it does, how long will it stay? No one knows. You just gotta guess.
Obviously, that is not exactly how these companies with massive, international supply chains like to operate. So inevitably, they are going to wait and see before committing to any major shift. That means supply is likely to thin out in the meantime. So if you stop into an Apple Store in June, don’t be surprised if the display models are the only iPhones in the building.
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