The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said Sunday that the administration’s decision on Friday night to exempt a variety of electronic devices from the rates implemented earlier this month was only a temporary postponement, and the secretary announced that these elements would be subject to “semiconductor rates” that will probably enter “one month or two.”
“All these products will be low semiconductors, and they will have a type of special approach to ensure that these products are rented again. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels: we must have these things in the United States.
He continued: “So what [President Donald Trump’s] To do is that they are saying that they are exempt from reciprocal tariffs, but are included in semiconductor rates, which are probably arriving in a month or two. Then these will arrive soon. “
The clarification of the administration occurs after a US Customs and Border Protection bulletin was published. UU. On Friday night, it describes the key electronics: smartphones, computers, solar cells, flat panel TV screens and semiconductor -based storage devices, among others, among others, would be exempt from the rates announced since April 2. That meant that these products would not be subject to steep rates in Chinese imports of the 10% rate of 10% of the 10% rate that the rate of the rate had not imposed.
The Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick speaks with ABC News while appearing in ‘This Week’ on April 13, 2025.
ABC News
Lutnick said in “this week” that the White House will implement “a rate model to encourage” the semiconductor industry, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, to move its business to the United States.
“We cannot be in debt and trust in foreign countries for fundamental things we need,” he said. “So this is not like a kind of permanent exemption. It only clarifies that these are not available to be negotiated by countries. These are things that are national security that we must do in the United States.”
Here are more outstanding aspects of Lutnick’s interview
About the status of tariff negotiations with China
Lutnick: I think we have had soft: uh, the way I would say that it is, it is “soft dishes”, you know, through intermediaries and that kind of comments. But we all hope that the president of the United States and President XI of China resolve it. I have completely confident, how is it [Trump]that this will be resolved in a positive, reflective and effective way for the United States of America. I mean, Donald Trump has the ball. I want you to have it. He is the right person with that. He knows how to play this game. He knows how to deal with President XI. This is the right person for the right role, and I am sure that this will work with China. Yes, is it in a difficult place now, of course it is, but that will see that? All that energy will decrease and end in a perfectly reasonable place with China. I am sure of that.
In vice president JD Vance referring to the Chinese people as ‘peasants’
In a Fox News interview earlier this month, Vance said: “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things that those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
Karl: Did the vice president come out of the message there? … I mean, I have not heard Donald Trump talk about that way about the Chinese.
Lutnick: I’m going to step back and really leave the vice president to defend himself. He knows what he meant, and we all know what he meant, which is that, you know, the Chinese have basically attacked the United States and cheated us, by undermining our businesses. The Chinese government helps its businesses to undermine our businesses, get them out of business and bring that manufacture to China. It has happened in pharmaceutical products. It has happened in many industries. … Imagine if the government of America, the United States of America, will support your business? I mean, you would be a murderer in the world. So that’s what the Chinese have been doing. And finally, Donald Trump is defending him.
About Trump saying that there would be a transition cost and transition problems’ with tariffs
Karl: This will mean higher prices, right?
Lutnick: I don’t necessarily believe it. I think the idea is that we can manufacture here in the United States. As I said, there is a, I saw Panasonic, you know, the battery company, the Japanese company. They built an incredible factory in Kansas, which are opening now. … That is what will return to America. You will see that production, that type of high -tech factor will produce things here at very reasonable prices. So I think this will work. “
About Trump’s constitutionality imposing tariffs
Karl: The Constitution – Article I, Section 8 – makes it very clear that Congress will have the power to put and raise taxes, duties, impositions and taxes then, how worried you are and are you prepared to defend this in court?
Lutnick: The President knows the law. The president’s general accessories know the law. They understand this that Congress has approved laws that gave the President the ability to protect our national security. We need to do medicine in the United States. If you do not believe it is national security, you are not thinking. We need to do semiconductors in the United States. We need steel and aluminum in the United States. We need to manufacture in the United States. If we only execute gigantic commercial deficits and sell our soul to the rest of the world, eventually, we will be the worker in the rest of the world. We are going to be the thinker of the rest of the world that they are going to manufacture, and if one day they say: “Wow, we are not sending it to you,” we will not be anything. So I think the president has national security in mind, and he is here to protect the United States.
