Insight

Trump’s Threat to Hit Chips With 100% Tariffs Raises Big Questions

Six supply chain analysts The New York Times interviewed on Thursday said they were uncertain how the administration might go about imposing and enforcing the tariffs. One route, they suggested, could be to base the tariffs on whether the maker of a finished device, for example an Apple iPhone or an Nvidia A.I. server, had facilities in the United States. Another way would be to inspect a device’s components to determine whether the maker of its logic chips, like TSMC, or its memory chips, like Samsung, made anything in the United States. This type of piece-by-piece assessment would be a bigger challenge, said William Li, an analyst focused on semiconductors at Counterpoint Research, a tech research firm. Read more.

Overview: Counterpoint's Macro Index dropped to 84.2 as of the end of Q2 2025, from 88.2in Q1 2025, mainly due to continued tariff uncertainty. The US initiated trade fights with more than thirty countries in April. However, limited progress has been made within the 90-day truce. The on-and-off trade deal negotiations destabilize global economic prospects. Regional conflicts in the Middle East, though, have been under control, and the worst of the economic ripple effects may have been mitigated in Q2.