There will be no price hikes for GPUs – the US does not impose “restrictive” tariffs on graphics cards

Fears that the prices of graphics cards could rise due to the restrictive tariffs imposed on China in the US have not materialized, at least not yet. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has announced that graphics cards will be exempt from tariffs along with hundreds of other components important to the U.S. economy.

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Special tariffs on Chinese imports to the US were first introduced in 2018 under Donald Trump’s presidency, but 352 products were exempt. GPUs were in them. Although the exemptions expired on New Year’s Day, US officials decided to keep them for another nine months. New President Joe Biden’s administration first extended them in March because previous exemptions had already expired.

Such measures are expected to help avoid price increases for various goods made in China – earlier, the price hike for goods subject to duty reached 25%. For example, in March, shortly after the deductions were announced, ASUS announced quarterly price cuts on some graphics cards. The new exemptions are a significant concession by the Biden administration, which has aggressively pushed trade restrictions on China in recent months to “neutralize” the country’s semiconductor industry in order to cripple the Chinese economy and China’s military might.

In July, the White House seriously discussed eliminating tariffs on goods imported from China — which some administration officials believe will help curb inflation, while others believe that eliminating tariffs would deprive the United States of key tools of influence. China.

The tariffs were first introduced in 2018 following a seven-month investigation by the Trump administration that found evidence of China’s “bad faith” trade policies, including intellectual property theft and hacking of US companies.

This led to the US and China entering into a phased trade agreement in 2019 that required China to make some structural reforms and changes in intellectual property. These agreements also addressed financial services, technology transfer issues and other issues. As part of the deal, the US agreed to significant changes in tax policy. At the same time, the United States announced that it would maintain import tariffs of 25% on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of imported goods. No agreement has yet been reached under the second round of talks. Bloomberg said in October that the White House was waiting for confirmation that China was open to further reform.