After a week of fears, uncertainty and doubt, President Trump abandoned on Saturday which will be music with Tim Cook's ears: all Apple products are exempt from 125% prices placed this week on imports in China. This follows a 90 -day break on prices on all other countries.
The exemption covers a wide variety of technological products, including smartphones, laptops, hard drives and processors, as well as headphones and smart speakers. This is essentially everything Apple sells, with the possible exception of certain accessories such as Apple Crayer and Magic Mouse. For the moment, it seems that it will be as usual at Apple Park, without immediate concern of the price increase.
However, the situation could change at any time. This week, Trump raised prices, a pricing break, threatened more prices, targeted TSMC by threatening a 100% tax and exempt essentially everything with a micropuce. Thus, Apple's stay can be temporary. Trump’s movements were unpredictable – including the exemption from Saturday – so it’s not clear what could happen next. For example, a 20% “fentanyl” rate is apparently remaining on imports from China for all products, and US trade secretary Howard Lunick said that smartphones and other consumer electronics could still be struck by separate prices. Thus, Trump could decide to collect other prices or modify the list of exempt products.
But for the moment, the fears around prices hikes, in particular with the iPhone 17 to a few months, have calmed down.
