President Trump’s far-reaching and sometimes random import taxes have proven to be a continuing source of frustration for businesses—and it doesn’t look like those headaches are going away anytime soon. The president said Wednesday that he intends to put a 100 percent import tariff on chips and semiconductors.
Like the over-200 percent tariff on goods and materials from China that briefly came and went before being dropped down to the current 30 percent , this would be an essentially insurmountable hurdle for domestic businesses reliant upon chip imports. The vast majority of global semiconductors are made in Taiwan, despite years of investment in new American fabrication plants.
Trump offered an escape hatch for his plans, saying there would be “no charge” for companies “building in t