The US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said this Sunday in an interview with the ABC television network that Friday’s decision to approve exemptions to a series of electronic products is “only temporary.” The products that have now been exempt have been some of the most affected by the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration at the beginning of April and, as Lutnick has announced, will be subject to new “semiconductor tariffs” that would be approved “in one or two months”.
Donald Trump’s Cabinet Manager of Donald Trump stressed in this interview that all products will be included under “semiconductors” and warned that they will have a special tariff to “ensure” that those products are again produced in the United States. “We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips and need to have flat panels,” said Lutnick, who immediately added that “we need to produce these things in America.”
Howard Lutnick, who ruled out “to be dependent on Southeast Asia for all the things that are necessary,” he also explained during the ‘This Week’ program of American television that what Donald Trump is doing is that these electronic products are exempt from the “reciprocal” tariffs, but that they will be “included in the semiconductor tariff months”. And he stressed: “So they will arrive soon.”
These clarifications of the White House arrive after this Saturday was known by the publication of a US Customs and Borders Bulletin in which a series of products were exempt from the “reciprocal” tariffs imposed by the US administration on April 2. Among the products to which neither these tariffs nor the minimum 10% tariff are applied and in force are some of the most dependent electronic products of the Chinese industry such as the Smartphone mobile phones, the computers, the flat screens or the routers.
Lutnick also said that the US government will implement a tariff model to promote the industrial production of semiconductors as well as pharmaceutical in US territory.
“We cannot be grateful and depend on foreign countries for fundamental things we need,” he said. “So this is not like a kind of permanent exemption. He [en referencia a Donald Trump] It is only clarifying that these are not issues that have to be negotiated by other countries. They are national security issues that we need to produce in America, ”said Lutnick.
In the interview, the question that continues to float in the air about the legality of the protectionist tariff policy unleashed by Donald Trump from April 2. As the interviewer recalled, the US Constitution makes it clear that Congress is the power to approve and collect taxes, fees, etc. While the president has cited an emergency law of 1977, which does not mention tariffs, to impose these new rates.
Given this issue, Lutnick defended that both President Trump and his advisors “know the law” and understand that Congress “has approved laws that give the President the ability to protect our national security”, insisting the defense of the tariff war as a matter of security: “If we simply generate giant commercial deficits and sell our soul to the rest of the world, we will eventually be the worker of the rest of the world,” he argued.
Trump will rule about Monday
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, advanced this Saturday that on Monday he will talk about the possible application of semiconductor tariffs, in the midst of the commercial war that he maintains with China and given the growing doubts about the erratic of the American strategy in this field.
When asked about the decision of the Customs Office and borders of excluding mobiles, computers, screens and all kinds of technological components of the lists of goods to which tariffs would be applied, as well as for the possibility that their government announce taxes for semiconductors that enter the US, Trump just said that Monday will give more information.
“I will give you the answer on Monday. We will be very specific,” republican replied on board the Air Force One, the US presidential plane, heading to Miami, where he went to a mixed martial arts fight in which his Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy, was also present.
“The fact is that we are entering a lot of money. As a country, we are entering a lot of money,” Trump said in reference to customs collection, which increased in March about 1,000 million dollars compared to the February data, thanks to the application of the first tariff waves that announced on Chinese goods or on raw materials such as steel and aluminum.
With the tariffs that apply reciprocally to their imports above 100%, international investors trust the possibility of some type of approach between Washington and Beijing to prevent the commercial war from between the two largest economies in the world into a global recession.
Low level negotiations with China
Although the Secretary of Commerce recognized “soft incoming” and contacts “through intermediaries” with China to questions from his interviewer, the truth is that the Chinese authorities have not approached the US authorities after their tariff impositions.
Howard Lutnick said in this interview that “we all hope that the president of the United States and President XI of China will resolve this” and stressed that it is “completely sure” that their differences will be resolved in a “positive, considered and effective” way for the US.
The head of Commerce of the Donald Trump government immediately praised the US President, said that he is “the right person for the right role”, who “knows how to deal with President XI” and that he is “sure that this will work with China.”
After that, presenter Jonathan Karl asked Lutnick if he believed it was appropriate that US vice president JD Vance called the inhabitants of China ” America, I was supporting your companies. killer In the world. So that’s what the Chinese have been doing. And finally, Donald Trump is facing it. ”
The Chinese government demands the end of tariffs
The Chinese government described this Sunday the tariff exemption approved by the US on Friday on certain electronic products as a “small step” so that the American country “corrects its wrong practice” of applying tariffs to the Asian giant and urged the White House to “completely cancel” the levies.
A spokesman from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement collected by EFE that Beijing is evaluating the “impact” of the memorandum that exempts some Chinese technological products, such as computers, mobile phones, semiconductor manufacturing equipment or integral circuits of the “reciprocal” tariffs approved by Donald Trump.
“This is a small step for the United States to correct its wrong practice of applying reciprocal tariffs unilaterally,” said the spokesman, who recalled that it is the “second adjustment to relevant policies” tariffs, after the suspension of some tariffs to commercial partners. For China, American tariffs “not only violate basic economic and market laws, but also ignore complementary cooperation and the relationship of supply and demand between countries.”
The spokesman also pointed out that, since the announcement of tariffs, the United States has failed to solve “none of the problems”, but, on the contrary, “has seriously undermined the international economic and commercial order, has seriously interfered with the normal production and functioning of companies and the life and consumption of people, and has harmed others without benefiting itself.”
For this reason, China has asked Washington to “listen to the rational voices of the international community” and that what it defines as a “great step” to “correct” their mistakes: to completely cancel the “reciprocal tariffs” and return “to the right path of mutual respect and the solution of differences through equal dialogue.” “China’s position on economic and commercial relations between China and the United States is consistent. There are no winners in a commercial war and there is no way out for protectionism. There is an old Chinese saying that says:” The person who tied the bell must be the one who unleashed it, “summarized the spokesman.
Source: www.eldiario.es
