The Trump administration is considering tariffs on every laptop, gaming console, and server that touches a semiconductor — which is all of them. The pitch is that this will bring chip manufacturing back to American soil. The reality is that a chip fab costs $20 billion, takes five years to build, and employs fewer people than a regional hospital. Your next laptop costs 20% more by Christmas. Intel gets a talking point for its investor call. You get the bill.
Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary who used to run a Wall Street brokerage, is the one designing this. His plan ties tariff relief to how much foreign companies invest in US chip plants — plants that will be almost entirely automated. So the play is: tax every consumer who buys a computer, funnel the money to companies building factories that won’t hire those consumers, and call it an industrial renaissance. The Computer and Communications Industry Association says it’ll cost the economy $90 billion a year and delay a fifth of planned data centre builds through 2030. Lutnick says it’ll make America great. One of those estimates was produced by economists. The other was produced by a guy who thinks tariffs are a negotiating tactic you use on your own citizens.
The January exemptions for electronics lasted seven months. Seven months of “we’re not going to tax your phone, relax” followed by “actually, we might tax your phone, your laptop, your gaming console, and the server your kid’s school runs on.” Every tariff Trump has announced started as something he wouldn’t do. The pattern is the policy. He floats the threat, watches the market flinch, does it anyway, and blames the country he just taxed. Canada got the 50% version of this two weeks ago. Now it’s your PlayStation’s turn.