President Trump imposed a 100% tariff on imported chips and semiconductors in an effort to bring high-tech manufacturing back to the United States. This announcement was surprising because the majority of the world's chip supply is manufactured outside the United States. Recently, Samsung, TSMC and SK Hynix confirmed that their chips and semiconductors will not be subject to these extraordinary tariffs.
Samsung and SK Hynix were exempted due to the trade agreement that was recently agreed upon between the United States and South Korea. Meanwhile, TSMC was exempted because it already has a factory in Arizona that produces Apple A16, Apple S9 and AMD Ryzen 9000 chips. This Fab 21 factory was built using the CHIPS Act initiative under the Biden administration.
In a question and answer session after the announcement was made, Trump said that tariff exemptions would be granted if the company builds a factory or has plans to build a chip production factory in the United States. This gives hope that Intel will also receive an exemption because like TSMC, they have built a factory in the United States after receiving CHIPS funds.