Mark Zuckerberg, chief government officer of Meta Platforms Inc., and U.S. President Donald Trump throughout a dinner with tech leaders within the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on Sept. 4, 2025.
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President Donald Trump has reiterated a warning that he’ll quickly impose “fairly substantial” tariffs on semiconductor imports from corporations that don’t shift manufacturing to the U.S., however will spare companies like Apple that increase investments domestically.
Trump made the feedback Thursday evening throughout a dinner on the White House with greater than two dozen main tech leaders, together with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle CEO Safra Catz.
“I’ve discussed it with the people here, chips and semiconductors, and we’ll be putting tariffs on companies that aren’t coming in,” the President stated.
“We’ll be putting a tariff very shortly. You probably are hearing we’ll be putting a fairly substantial tariff, or not that high, but a fairly substantial tariff.”
Trump had stated final month throughout an occasion with Cook that he would impose a 100% tariff on semiconductor imports, whereas exempting merchandise from corporations that transfer their manufacturing to the U.S. At the time, Apple pledged to spend a further $100 billion on a home manufacturing initiative, including on a $500 billion announcement that Apple made in February.
During Thursday’s occasion, Trump famous that “Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape,” relating to the potential import levies.
The U.S. has been working to onshore its semiconductor provide chain for a few years now. Since 2020, the world’s largest semiconductor corporations, reminiscent of TSMC and Samsung Electronics, have dedicated lots of of billions of {dollars} to constructing crops within the U.S.
Thus, these main semiconductor corporations are expected to receive exemptions beneath Trump’s potential tariffs. However, many facets of the tariffs and exceptions for corporations investing within the U.S. stay unclear.
Trump supplied few particulars on Thursday, saying merely that “if they’re coming in, building, planning to come in, there will not be a tariff.”
The relaxation of the dinner noticed tech leaders from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Google co-founder Sergey Brin bathe reward on the President for his pro-business and AI stances.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had a public spat with Trump in June this yr, was not current on the dinner. However, he stated on his social media platform X that he was invited, however couldn’t attend, and that he would ship a consultant.
Before the dinner, first girl Melania Trump made a speech alongside senior Trump administration officers and tech CEOs for the second assembly of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education.
The first girl highlighted the significance of AI in schooling and American progress, however that “we must manage AI’s growth responsibly.”