tariffs

Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs

ars live, consumer tech, Donald Trump, game console prices, laptop prices, Policy, smartphone prices, tariffs, us-china trade war / Mike M. / September 2, 2025

And perhaps the biggest confounding factor for businesses attempting to align supply chain choices with predictable tariff costs is looming chip tariffs. Trump has suggested those could come in August, but nearing the end of the month, there’s still no clarity there.

As tech firms brace for chip tariffs, Brzytwa will share CTA’s forecast based on a survey of industry experts, revealing the unique sourcing challenges chip tariffs will likely pose. It’s a particular pain point that Trump seems likely to impose taxes not just on imports of semiconductors but of any downstream product that includes a chip.

Because different electronics parts are typically assembled in different countries, supply chains for popular products have suddenly become a winding path, with potential tariff obstacles cropping up at any turn.

To Trump, complicating supply chains seems to be the point, intending to divert entire supply chains into the country to make the US a tech manufacturing hub, supposedly at the expense of his prime trade war target, China—which today is considered a world manufacturing “superpower.”

However, The New York Times this week suggested that Trump’s bullying tactics aren’t working on China, and experts suggest that now his chip tariffs risk not just spiking prices but throttling AI innovation in the US—just as China’s open source AI models shake up markets globally.

Brzytwa will share CTA research showing how the trade war has rattled, and will likely continue to rattle, tech firms into the foreseeable future. He’ll explain why tech firms can’t quickly or cheaply divert chip supply chains—and why policy that neglects to understand tech firms’ positions could be a lose-lose, putting Americans in danger of losing affordable access to popular tech without achieving Trump’s goal of altering China’s trade behavior.

Add to Google Calendar | Add to calendar (.ics download)

Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs Read More »

Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs

ars live, consumer tech, Donald Trump, game console prices, laptop prices, Policy, smartphone prices, tariffs, us-china trade war / Beth Washington / August 26, 2025

Add to Google Calendar | Add to calendar (.ics download)

Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs Read More »

Trump strikes “wild” deal making US firms pay 15% tax on China chip sales

AI, AI chips, AMD, Donald Trump, Huawei, Micron, NVIDIA, Policy, semiconductor, tariffs, us-china trade war / 9u50fv / August 11, 2025

“Extra penalty” for US firms

The deal won’t resolve national security concerns.

Ahead of an August 12 deadline for a US-China trade deal, Donald Trump’s tactics continue to confuse those trying to assess the country’s national security priorities regarding its biggest geopolitical rival.

For months, Trump has kicked the can down the road regarding a TikTok ban, allowing the app to continue operating despite supposedly urgent national security concerns that China may be using the app to spy on Americans. And now, in the latest baffling move, a US official announced Monday that Trump got Nvidia and AMD to agree to “give the US government 15 percent of revenue from sales to China of advanced computer chips,” Reuters reported. Those chips, about 20 policymakers and national security experts recently warned Trump, could be used to fuel China’s frontier AI, which seemingly poses an even greater national security risk.

Trump’s “wild” deal with US chip firms

Reuters granted two officials anonymity to discuss Trump’s deal with US chipmakers, because details have yet to be made public. Requiring US firms to pay for sales in China is an “unusual” move for a president, Reuters noted, and the Trump administration has yet to say what exactly it plans to do with the money.

For US firms, the deal may set an alarming precedent. Not only have analysts warned that the deal could “hurt margins” for both companies, but export curbs on Nvidia’s H20 chips, for example, had been established to prevent US technology thefts, secure US technology leadership, and protect US national security. Now the US government appears to be accepting a payment to overlook those alleged risks, without much reassurance that the policy won’t advantage China in the AI race.

The move drew immediate scrutiny from critics, including Geoff Gertz, a senior fellow at the US think tank Center for a New American Security, who told Reuters that he thinks the deal is “wild.”

“Either selling H20 chips to China is a national security risk, in which case we shouldn’t be doing it to begin with, or it’s not a national security risk, in which case, why are we putting this extra penalty on the sale?” Gertz posited.

At this point, the only reassurance from the Trump administration is an official suggesting (without providing any rationale) that selling H20 or equivalent chips—which are not Nvidia’s most advanced chips—no longer compromises national security.

Trump “trading away” national security

It remains unclear when or how the levy will be implemented.

For chipmakers, the levy is likely viewed as a relatively small price to pay to avoid export curbs. Nvidia had forecasted $8 billion in potential losses if it couldn’t sell its H20 chips to China. AMD expected $1 billion in revenue cuts, partly due to the loss of sales for its MI308 chips in China.

The firms apparently agreed to Trump’s deal as a condition to receive licenses to export those chips. But caving to Trump could bite them back in the long run, AJ Bell, investment director Russ Mould, told Reuters—perhaps especially if Trump faces increasing pressure over feared national security concerns.

“The Chinese market is significant for both these companies, so even if they have to give up a bit of the money, they would otherwise make it look like a logical move on paper,” Mould said. However, the deal “is unprecedented and there is always the risk the revenue take could be upped or that the Trump administration changes its mind and re-imposes export controls.”

So far, AMD has not commented on the report. Nvidia’s spokesperson declined to comment beyond noting, “We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets.”

A former adviser to Joe Biden’s Commerce Department, Alasdair Phillips-Robins, told Reuters that the levy suggests the Trump administration “is trading away national security protections for revenue for the Treasury.”

Huawei close to unveiling new AI chip tech

The end of a 90-day truce between the US and China is rapidly approaching, with the US signaling that the truce will likely be extended soon as Trump attempts to get a long-sought-after meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

For China, gutting export curbs on chips remains a key priority in negotiations, the Financial Times reported Sunday. But Nvidia’s H20 chips, for example, are lower priority than high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, sources told FT.

Chinese state media has even begun attacking the H20 chips as a Chinese national security risk. It appears that China is urging a boycott on H20 chips due to questions linked to a recent Congressional push to require chipmakers to build “backdoors” that would allow remote shutdowns of any chips detected as non-compliant with export curbs. That bill may mean that Nvidia’s chips already allow for US surveillance, China seemingly fears. (Nvidia has denied building such backdoors.)

Biden banned HBM exports to China last year, specifically moving to hamper innovation of Chinese chipmakers Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

Currently, US firms AMD and Micron remain top suppliers of HBM chips globally, along with South Korean firms Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, but Chinese firms have notably lagged behind, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. One source told FT that China “had raised the HBM issue in some” Trump negotiations, likely directly seeking to lift Biden’s “HBM controls because they seriously constrain the ability of Chinese companies, including Huawei, to develop their own AI chips.”

For Trump, the HBM controls could be seen as leverage to secure another trade win. However, some experts are hoping that Trump won’t play that card, citing concerns from the Biden era that remain unaddressed.

If Trump bends to Chinese pressure and lifts HBM controls, China could more easily produce AI chips at scale, Biden had feared. That could even possibly endanger US firms’ standing as world leaders, seemingly including threatening Nvidia, a company that Trump discovered this term. Gregory Allen, an AI expert at a US think tank called the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told FT that “saying that we should allow more advanced HBM sales to China is the exact same as saying that we should help Huawei make better AI chips so that they can replace Nvidia.”

Meanwhile, Huawei is reportedly already innovating to help reduce China’s reliance on HBM chips, the SCMP reported on Monday. Chinese state-run Securities Times reported that Huawei is “set to unveil a technological breakthrough that could reduce China’s reliance on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for running artificial intelligence reasoning models” at the 2025 Financial AI Reasoning Application Landing and Development Forum in Shanghai on Tuesday.

It’s a conveniently timed announcement, given the US-China trade deal deadline lands the same day. But the risk of Huawei possibly relying on US tech to reach that particular milestone is why HBM controls should remain off the table during Trump’s negotiations, one official told FT.

“Relaxing these controls would be a gift to Huawei and SMIC and could open the floodgates for China to start making millions of AI chips per year, while also diverting scarce HBM from chips sold in the US,” the official said.

Experts and policymakers had previously warned Trump that allowing H20 export curbs could similarly reduce access to semiconductors in the US, potentially disrupting the entire purpose of Trump’s trade war, which is building reliable US supply chains. Additionally, allowing exports will likely drive up costs to US chip firms at a time when they noted “projected data center demand from the US power market would require 90 percent of global chip supply through 2030, an unlikely scenario even without China joining the rush to buy advanced AI chips.” They’re now joined by others urging Trump to revive Biden’s efforts to block chip exports to China, or else risk empowering a geopolitical rival to become a global AI leader ahead of the US.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Trump strikes “wild” deal making US firms pay 15% tax on China chip sales Read More »

Sonos says it’s forced to raise prices while trying to win back customers

Sonos, tariffs, Tech / Beth Washington / August 7, 2025

During that call, Sonos CFO Saori Casey said that the company expects “tariff expenses will be approximately $5 million in Q4.” In Sonos’ fiscal Q3, it paid $3.5 million in tariffs, Casey said.

Sonos is still recovering from app problems

Since July 2024, when Sonos’ then-CEO Patrick Spence admitted that a software update inadvertently broke many Sonos devices, the company has been trying to prove to customers and investors that its pricey audio devices are still worth buying.

During the earnings call, Conrad said he believes the value of Sonos gadgets “compounds over time, thanks to the kinds of software updates that deliver new experiences.” But a widely reviled app update last year damaged Sonos’ reputation in this area. The update stripped the app of some basic features, such as the ability to edit playlists and song queues, and many Sonos devices, especially older ones, stopped functioning properly.

Meanwhile, Sonos hasn’t released a new product since the Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4 subwoofer in October 2024. In March, reports surfaced that Sonos axed its streaming video player. Conrad told investors yesterday that Sonos has a release roadmap going beyond its 2026 fiscal year. Any devices in that roadmap, however, will be challenged to sell customers on their software, long-term reliability, and price.

Customers may cut Sonos some slack, considering the widespread impact that tariffs are expected to have on electronics pricing. In May, the Trump administration axed the de minimis exemption that enabled duty-free imports of goods worth $800 or less, impacting electronics such as PC peripherals and DIY parts. Currently, the US and China have paused tariffs as the countries look to reach an agreement by August 12. At that time, goods imported from China could face tariffs as high as 145 percent, which would significantly impact the prices of most electronics sold in the US.

But Sonos is already struggling to release and sell new products at high prices, so raising them even higher could further harm the company.

“We lost the momentum in 2024. We’re starting to get it back, and we’re going to accelerate our pace from here,” Conrad said.

Sonos says it’s forced to raise prices while trying to win back customers Read More »

Trump wanted a US-made iPhone. Apple gave him a gold statue.

Apple, Donald Trump, iPhones, Policy, tariffs, us-china trade war / DJ Henderson / August 7, 2025

Once again, Apple escapes Trump’s iPhone pressure

Since Trump took office, analysts have suggested that Cook might be the tech CEO best prepared to navigate Trump’s trade war.

During Trump’s last term, Cook launched a charm offensive, wooing Trump with investment commitments to avoid caving to Trump’s demands for US-made iPhones while securing tariff exemptions.

Back then, Apple notably seemed to avoid following through on some of its commitments, abandoning plans to build three “big, beautiful” Apple plants that Trump announced in 2017. Ultimately, only one plant was built, which made face masks, not Apple products. Similarly, in 2019, Trump toured a Texas facility that he claimed could be used to build iPhones, but Apple only committed to building MacBook Pros there, not the Apple product that Trump sees as the crown jewel of his domestic supply chain dreams.

This time, Apple has committed to a total investment of $600 billion to move more manufacturing into the US over the next four years. But Apple was probably going to spend that money anyway, as “analysts say the numbers align with Apple’s typical spending patterns and echo commitments made during both the Biden administration and Trump’s previous term,” Reuters reported.

Trump has claimed that any company found to be dodging pledges will be retroactively charged tariffs if they fail to follow through on investments. However, Apple seems to be chugging along with its usual business in the US, while manufacturing iPhones elsewhere probably wouldn’t change the tariff calculus, as it is now.

So at least at this stage of Cook and Trump’s friendship, it appears that Apple has once again secured exemptions without committing to building a US-made iPhone or even committing significant new investments.

On Wednesday, at least one analyst—Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments, which holds Apple shares—told Reuters that Apple’s moves this week were “a savvy solution to the president’s demand that Apple manufacture all iPhones in the US.”

Trump wanted a US-made iPhone. Apple gave him a gold statue. Read More »

Trump suspends trade loophole for cheap online retailers globally

Amazon, de minimis, Donald Trump, e-commerce, Policy, shein, tariffs, temu, trump tariffs, us-china trade war / Mike M. / July 31, 2025

But even Amazon may struggle to shift its supply chain as the de minimis exemption is eliminated for all countries. In February, the e-commerce giant “projected lower-than-expected sales and operating income for its first quarter,” which it partly attributed to “unpredictability in the economy.” A DataWeave study concluded at the end of June that “US prices for China-made goods on Amazon” were rising “faster than inflation,” Reuters reported, likely due to “cost shocks” currently “rippling through the retail supply chain.” Other non-Chinese firms likely impacted by this week’s order include eBay, Etsy, TikTok Shop, and Walmart.

Amazon did not respond to Ars’ request to comment but told Reuters last month that “it has not seen the average prices of products change up or down appreciably outside of typical fluctuations.”

Trump plans to permanently close loophole in 2027

Trump has called the de minimis exemption a “big scam,” claiming that it’s a “catastrophic loophole” used to “evade tariffs and funnel deadly synthetic opioids as well as other unsafe or below-market products that harm American workers and businesses into the United States.”

To address what Trump has deemed “national emergencies” hurting American trade and public health, he has urgently moved to suspend the loophole now and plans to permanently end it worldwide by July 1, 2027.

American travelers will still be able to “bring back up to $200 in personal items” and receive “bona fide gifts valued at $100 or less” duty-free, but a fixed tariff rate of between $80 to $200 per item will be applied to many direct-to-consumer shipments until Trump finishes negotiating trade deals with the rest of America’s key trade partners. As each deal is theoretically closed, any shipments will be taxed according to tariff rates of their country of origin. (Those negotiations are supposed to conclude by tomorrow, but so far, Trump has only struck deals with the European Union, Japan, and South Korea.)

Trump suspends trade loophole for cheap online retailers globally Read More »

Trump caving on Nvidia H20 export curbs may disrupt his bigger trade war

AI, AI chips, Donald Trump, frontier ai, h20 chips, Howard Lutnick, Jensen Huang, NVIDIA, Policy, semiconductors, tariffs, trump tariffs, us-china trade war / 9u50fv / July 29, 2025

But experts seem to fear that Trump isn’t paying enough attention to how exports of US technology could threaten to not only supercharge China’s military and AI capabilities but also drain supplies that US firms need to keep the US at the forefront of AI innovation.

“More chips for China means fewer chips for the US,” experts said, noting that “China’s biggest tech firms, including Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba,” have spent $16 billion on bulk-ordered H20 chips over the past year.

Meanwhile, “projected data center demand from the US power market would require 90 percent of global chip supply through 2030, an unlikely scenario even without China joining the rush to buy advanced AI chips,” experts said. If Trump doesn’t intervene, one of America’s biggest AI rivals could even end up driving up costs of AI chips for US firms, they warned.

“We urge you to reverse course,” the letter concluded. “This is not a question of trade. It is a question of national security.”

Trump says he never heard of Nvidia before

Perhaps the bigger problem for Trump, national security experts suggest, would be if China or other trade partners perceive the US resolve to wield export controls as a foreign policy tool to be “weakened” by Trump reversing course on H20 controls.

They suggested that Trump caving on H20 controls could even “embolden China to seek additional access concessions” at a time when some analysts suggest that China may already have an upper hand in trade negotiations.

The US and China are largely expected to extend a 90-day truce following recent talks in Stockholm, Reuters reported. Anonymous sources told the South China Morning Post that the US may have already agreed to not impose any new tariffs or otherwise ratchet up the trade war during that truce, but that remains unconfirmed, as Trump continues to warn that chip tariffs are coming soon.

Trump has recently claimed that he thinks he may be close to cementing a deal with China, but it appears likely that talks will continue well into the fall. A meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping probably won’t be scheduled until late October or early November, Reuters reported.

Trump caving on Nvidia H20 export curbs may disrupt his bigger trade war Read More »

US may get its own glitchy version of TikTok if Trump’s deal works out

bytedance, Donald Trump, Policy, tariffs, tiktok, TikTok ban, us-china trade war / 9u50fv / July 7, 2025

“Even if Beijing would choose to overlook the recent tariff hikes and ratcheting up of US export controls on chip technologies, they still wouldn’t grant export licenses for the algorithms,” Capri said.

US version of TikTok may be buggy

Trump claims that he has found US buyers for TikTok, which Bloomberg reported is believed to be the same group behind the prior stalled deal, including Oracle, Blackstone Inc., and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

If a sale is approved, a new US version of TikTok would roll out on September 5, The Information reported. All US-based TikTok users would be prompted to switch over to the new app by March 2026, at which point the original app would stop working, sources told The Information.

It’s unclear how different the US app will be from the global app, but The Information noted that transferring up to 170 million US users’ profiles to address US fears of China using the app to spy on or manipulate Americans may not be easy. Once source suggested the transfers “could pose technical issues in practice,” possibly negatively affecting the US experience of the app from the start.

That, in turn, could drive users to alternative apps if too much content is lost or the algorithm is viewed as less effective at recommending content.

For ByteDance—which The Information reported has been “finalizing the legal and financial details” of the deal with Trump’s chosen buyers—losing US users could risk disrupting the growth of TikTok Shop, which is the company’s major focus globally as the fastest-growing part of its business, the SCMP reported. Prioritizing TikTok Shop’s growth could motivate ByteDance to back down from refusing to sell the app, but ultimately, China would still need to sign off, Trump has said.

Although critics and Trump himself continue to doubt that China will agree to Trump’s deal, the preparation of a US app sets up one potential timeline for when big changes may be coming to TikTok.

For TikTok users—many of whom depend on TikTok for income—this fall could make or break their online businesses, depending on how the deal ultimately affects TikTok’s algorithm.

US may get its own glitchy version of TikTok if Trump’s deal works out Read More »

Trump’s tariff threat pushes Canada to scrap digital services tax

Canada, digital services tax, Donald Trump, DST, Policy, tariffs / DJ Henderson / June 30, 2025

In a sudden reversal, Canada has caved and will remove its digital services tax after trade talks with the US suddenly fell apart this weekend.

Blocked just hours before taking effect, the controversial digital services tax (DST) would have charged big US tech companies like Apple, Google, and Meta a 3 percent tax on all digital services revenue earned from Canadian users. Frustrating US tech giants, Canada also sought to collect retroactive taxes dating back to 2022.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump claimed the tax was a “direct and blatant attack” on US tech companies and terminated the trade talks, while threatening to impose a new tariff rate on Canadian goods by July 4.

On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seemingly bowed to Trump’s pressure campaign, abruptly doing an “about turn” after previously refusing to pause the DST despite Trump’s opposition, NBC News reported.

But it wasn’t just Trump pushing Carney to reconsider the tax. A nonprofit representing CEOs and leaders of some of Canada’s biggest businesses, the Business Council of Canada, had warned that Carney defending the tax risked “undermining Canada’s economic relationship with its most important trading partner,” Al Jazeera reported.

If Trump were to impose new tariffs on Canada, it could have “large ripple effects across both economies,” the Council warned, potentially disrupting markets for automobiles, minerals, energy, and aluminum. And Trump—who has been bashing Canada with annexation threats throughout trade talks—had also threatened a Section 301 investigation into impacts of the DST on the US economy, which meant other punitive measures could be coming if the DST wasn’t removed. To Canada’s business leaders, the costs of defending the DST were seemingly becoming too high.

Trump’s tariff threat pushes Canada to scrap digital services tax Read More »

Trump suggests he needs China to sign off on TikTok sale, delays deal again

bytedance, Donald Trump, national security, Policy, rare earths, semiconductors, tariffs, tiktok, TikTok ban, us-china trade war / 9u50fv / June 18, 2025

For many Americans, losing TikTok would be disruptive. TikTok has warned that US businesses could lose $1 billion in one month if TikTok shuts down. As these businesses wait in limbo for a resolution to the situation, it’s getting harder to take the alleged national security threat seriously, as clinching the deal appears to lack urgency.

On Wednesday, the White House continued to warn that Americans are not safe using TikTok, though, despite leaving Americans vulnerable for an extended period that could now stretch to eight months.

In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt only explained that “President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark” and would sign an executive order “to keep TikTok up and running” through mid-September. Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration would focus on finishing the deal in this three-month period, “making sure the sale closes so that Americans can keep using TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” Reuters reported.

US-China tensions continue, despite truce

Trump’s negotiations with China have been shaky, but a truce was reestablished last week that could potentially pave the way for a TikTok deal.

Initially, Trump had planned to use the TikTok deal as a bargaining chip, but the tit-for-tat retaliations between the US and China all spring reportedly left China hesitant to agree to any deal. Perhaps sensing the power shift in negotiations, Trump offered to reduce China’s highest tariffs to complete the deal in March. But by April, analysts opined that Trump was still “desperate” to close, while China saw no advantage in letting go of TikTok any time soon.

Despite the current truce, tensions between the US and China continue, as China has begun setting its own deadlines to maintain leverage in the trade war. According to The Wall Street Journal, China put a six-month limit “on the sales of rare earths to US carmakers and manufacturers, giving Beijing leverage if the trade conflict flares up again.”

Trump suggests he needs China to sign off on TikTok sale, delays deal again Read More »

Trade war truce between US and China is back on

china, china tariffs, Policy, syndication, tariffs, trade / DJ Henderson / June 11, 2025

Both countries agreed in Geneva last month to slash their respective tariffs by 115 percentage points and provided a 90-day window to resolve the trade war.

But the ceasefire came under pressure after Washington accused Beijing of reneging on an agreement to speed up the export of rare earths, while China criticized new US export controls.

This week’s talks to resolve the impasse were held in the historic Lancaster House mansion in central London, a short walk from Buckingham Palace, which was provided by the British government as a neutral ground for the talks.

Over the two days, the US team, which included Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and US trade representative Jamieson Greer, [met with] the Chinese delegation, which was led by He Lifeng, a vice-premier responsible for the economy.

The negotiations were launched to ensure Chinese exports of rare earths to the US and American technology export controls on China did not derail broader talks between the sides.

Ahead of the first round of talks in Geneva, Bessent had warned that the high level of mutual tariffs had amounted to an effective embargo on bilateral trade.

Chinese exports to the US fell more steeply in May compared with a year earlier than at any point since the pandemic in 2020.

The US had said China was not honoring its pledge in Geneva to ease restrictions on rare earths exports, which are critical to the defense, car, and tech industries, and was dragging its feet over approving licenses for shipments, affecting manufacturing supply chains in the US and Europe.

Beijing has accused the US of “seriously violating” the Geneva agreement after it announced new restrictions on sales of chip design software to Chinese companies.

It has also objected to the US issuing new warnings on the global use of Huawei chips and canceling visas for Chinese students.

Separately, a US federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed some of Trump’s broadest tariffs to remain in place while it reviews a lower-court ruling that had blocked his “liberation day” levies on US trading partners.

The ruling extended an earlier temporary reprieve and will allow Trump to enact the measures as well as separate levies targeting Mexico, Canada, and China. The president has, however, already paused the wider “reciprocal” tariffs for 90 days.

Trade war truce between US and China is back on Read More »

Court blocks Trump’s retaliatory tariffs, amplifying trade war chaos

Donald Trump, Policy, tariffs, trade war / Kelly Newman / May 29, 2025

Trump quickly appeals

Trump has immediately appealed the ruling and is expected to take the case to the Supreme Court. He’s arguing that the court cannot define what constitutes a “national emergency,” which is a political question he believes only Congress can address.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai has made it clear that Trump remains “committed to using every lever of executive power to address” the “crisis” of trade deficits, CNN reported, which he claimed have “decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base.”

But the three-judge panel has already indicated that Trump may be focusing on the wrong question in seeking to further his case, noting that the “question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.” According to the court, Trump does not.

Americans celebrate Trump loss

Ultimately, the judges agreed with US plaintiffs who alleged that tariffs risked vast harms to Americans, including spiking prices on their goods. Earlier this month, the Consumer Technology Association forecasted that Americans could pay more than $123 billion more annually for just 10 common gadgets hit with tariffs.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, among other state enforcers who are suing, issued a statement criticizing Trump’s previously “unchecked authority” that he said threatened to “upend the economy” and celebrating the win for “working families, small businesses, and everyday Americans.”

“President Trump’s sweeping tariffs were unlawful, reckless, and economically devastating,” Rayfield said. “They triggered retaliatory measures, inflated prices on essential goods, and placed an unfair burden on American families, small businesses and manufacturers.”

Problems with sourcing and pricing were decreasing orders even to American businesses, suing US firms said, and for many, the sudden spike in costs at the border caused “a large, immediate, strain” on cash flow. At least one plaintiff alleged they could go out of business and be unable to pay employees without an injunction soon. One cycling store feared tariffs might cost it about $250,000 by the end of 2025.

Court blocks Trump’s retaliatory tariffs, amplifying trade war chaos Read More »