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The US said Friday many tech categories would be exempt from recently announced tariffs.
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Then, on Sunday, Trump said tech products would be subject to separate tariffs in the future.
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said those new tariffs could come in a month or two.
It appears the US tech industry might not be free from additional tariffs after all.
President Donald Trump said Sunday in a Truth Social post that tech-related tariffs were still on the table, two days after the US announced that many tech products would be exempt from the recently announced tariffs against China.
"There was no Tariff 'exception' announced on Friday," Trump wrote. "These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff 'bucket.'"
Last week, US Customs and Border Protection published a list of tech categories exempt from the huge tariffs levied against China, including smartphones, computers, and chipmaking equipment. The news was well received by the tech industry, which hoped to recover some of its losses when markets reopen on Monday.
But any investor excitement will likely be tempered by Trump's Sunday comments. Trump said "nobody is getting off the hook" amid the trade war between the US and China.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed Trump's comments during an interview with ABC News on Sunday, saying that tech products would be subject to tariffs after an investigation into the effect that importing vital tech components had on national security.
He said that while tech products were "exempt from the reciprocal tariffs," they would be included in what he called "semiconductor tariffs," which he said could come in the next month or two.
"All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored," Lutnick said. "We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels — we need to have these things made in America. We can't be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us."
The White House confirmed to Business Insider in an email on Saturday that Trump intended to issue new tariffs on certain tech products.
"President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops," the White House's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told BI in an email. "That's why the President has secured trillions of dollars in US investments from the largest tech companies in the world, including Apple, TSMC, and Nvidia. At the direction of the President, these companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible."