The administration of US President Donald Trump is weighing a new round of sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, the news site Politico reported on Thursday (27), citing eight people familiar with the discussions. This time the target would go beyond the chips themselves to the products built around them: laptops, video game consoles and data center servers, according to the report, carried in Brazil by Folha de S.Paulo via a Reuters dispatch.
To grasp the change of scale, think of the difference between taxing flour and taxing the bread, the cake and the ready-made pasta. Semiconductors are the invisible ingredient in almost everything with a power button, and a tariff that reaches the finished product touches a far larger share of global trade than one limited to the component alone.
According to Politico, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick favors a structure that would tie tariff exemptions for foreign companies to investments in chip manufacturing on American soil, as a way to boost local production. In practice, the tariff would work less like a tax and more like a bargaining lever: build a factory in the US and you escape it, refuse and you pay. The design gives manufacturers a direct incentive to announce US investments, even when producing there costs more.
What we still do not know
Quite a lot. The White House is considering a transition period for the new tariffs, and the structure could still undergo substantial revisions over the coming weeks or months, Politico reported. There is no defined rate, no final product list and no start date. One important caveat: Reuters, which distributed the story, said it could not immediately verify the information independently. For now, this is a plan under discussion, not an announced policy.
Context helps read the move. The Trump administration had already imposed a 15% tariff on polysilicon, a raw material for chips and solar panels, as Folha recalls. A new round, if confirmed, would extend that pressure from the raw input to the finished device.
The practical takeaway: watch for two signals in the coming weeks, announcements of chip factory investments in the US, which would show Lutnick's lever is working, and any decision on rates and scope. If tariffs do reach finished products, the most visible effect for consumers, including in Brazil, would likely be higher prices for imported laptops, consoles and electronics.