President Donald Trump has signed an executive order extending reduced tariffs on China for another 90 days, CNBC reports. The new order was signed before the previous agreement expired at midnight on August 12.
The extension of the agreement provides for the maintenance of the current 30% tariff on goods from China while representatives of both countries negotiate a new trade agreement. The previous agreement reduced US tariffs from 145% to 30% and Chinese tariffs from 145% to 10%.
At the time, it was unclear how this move would affect the prices of electronics manufactured in China, but for at least some companies, it did lead to higher costs. Although the price of the Switch 2 remains unchanged, in early August, Nintendo announced that the price of the Switch 1 would increase by $40 or more. Sonos said that prices for some of its products would increase, but did not share details. DJI and Microsoft also announced price increases for some of their products back in May.
For companies that manufacture products overseas, sudden changes in the Trump administration’s trade policy seem almost as challenging as the tariffs themselves. This unpredictable protectionism is changing global trade and forcing companies trying to conduct business as usual to make concessions. Last week, Apple pledged to spend an additional $100 billion on manufacturing in the US to avoid tariffs. And this morning, AMD and NVIDIA reportedly agreed to pay the US 15% of their profits in order to obtain permission to sell graphics processors in China.
