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Mark Zuckerberg, chief government officer of Meta Platforms Inc., and U.S. President Donald Trump throughout a dinner with tech leaders within the State Eating Room of the White Home in Washington, DC, U.S., on Sept. 4, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
President Donald Trump has reiterated a warning that he’ll quickly impose “pretty substantial” tariffs on semiconductor imports from firms that don’t shift manufacturing to the U.S., however will spare corporations like Apple that broaden investments domestically.
Trump made the feedback Thursday night time throughout a dinner on the White Home with greater than two dozen main tech leaders, together with Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, Meta‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle CEO Safra Catz.
“I’ve mentioned it with the folks right here, chips and semiconductors, and we’ll be placing tariffs on firms that are not coming in,” the President stated.
“We’ll be placing a tariff very shortly. You in all probability are listening to we’ll be placing a reasonably substantial tariff, or not that top, however a reasonably substantial tariff.”
Trump had stated final month throughout an occasion with Cook dinner that he would impose a 100% tariff on semiconductor imports, whereas exempting merchandise from firms that transfer their manufacturing to the U.S. On the time, Apple pledged to spend an extra $100 billion on a home manufacturing initiative, including on a $500 billion announcement that Apple made in February.
Throughout Thursday’s occasion, Trump famous that “Tim Cook dinner could be in fairly fine condition,” concerning the potential import levies.
The U.S. has been working to onshore its semiconductor provide chain for a few years now. Since 2020, the world’s largest semiconductor firms, equivalent to TSMC and Samsung Electronics, have dedicated a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} to constructing vegetation within the U.S.
Thus, these main semiconductor firms are anticipated to obtain exemptions underneath Trump’s potential tariffs. Nevertheless, many facets of the tariffs and exceptions for firms investing within the U.S. stay unclear.
Trump supplied few particulars on Thursday, saying merely that “in the event that they’re coming in, constructing, planning to come back in, there is not going to be a tariff.”
The remainder of the dinner noticed tech leaders from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Google co-founder Sergey Brin bathe reward on the President for his pro-business and AI stances.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had a public spat with Trump in June this yr, was not current on the dinner. Nevertheless, he stated on his social media platform X that he was invited, however couldn’t attend, and that he would ship a consultant.
Earlier than the dinner, first woman Melania Trump made a speech alongside senior Trump administration officers and tech CEOs for the second assembly of the White Home Process Drive on Synthetic Intelligence Schooling.
The primary woman highlighted the significance of AI in training and American progress, however stated that “we should handle AI’s development responsibly.”
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