Trump warns ‘fairly substantial’ chip tariffs are coming; signals Apple, others will be safe

President Donald Trump has reiterated a warning that he will soon impose "fairly substantial" tariffs on semiconductor imports from companies that do not shift production to the U.S., but will spare firms like Apple that expand investments domestically.

Trump made the comments Thursday night during a dinner at the White House with more than two dozen major tech leaders, including 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 said.

"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 said last month during an event with Cook that he would impose a 100% tariff on semiconductor imports, while exempting products from companies that move their manufacturing to the U.S. At the time, Apple pledged to spend an additional $100 billion on a domestic manufacturing initiative, adding on a $500 billion announcement that Apple made in February.

During Thursday's event, Trump noted that "Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape," regarding the potential import levies.

The U.S. has been working to onshore its semiconductor supply chain for many years now. Since 2020, the world's largest semiconductor companies, such as TSMC and Samsung Electronics, have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to building plants in the U.S.

Thus, these major semiconductor companies are expected to receive exemptions under Trump's potential tariffs. However, many aspects of the tariffs and exceptions for companies investing in the U.S. remain unclear.

Trump offered few details on Thursday, saying simply that "if they're coming in, building, planning to come in, there will not be a tariff."

The rest of the dinner saw tech leaders from OpenAI's Sam Altman to Google co-founder Sergey Brin shower praise on the President for his pro-business and AI stances.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had a public spat with Trump in June this year, was not present at the dinner. However, he said on his social media platform X that he was invited, but could not attend, and that he would send a representative.

Before the dinner, first lady Melania Trump made a speech alongside senior Trump administration officials and tech CEOs for the second meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education.

The first lady highlighted the importance of AI in education and American progress, but that "we must manage AI's growth responsibly."