After the chaos of Donald Trump's announcement of additional tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, businesses are beginning to see a little more clearly the repercussions of this trade war. And the news is already bad for American consumers: prices are going to rise.
Businesses under pressure, customers pay up
And it will start this Wednesday, when the largest part of the "Trump taxes" - after the unilateral 10% in place since April 5 - comes into effect. Micron has informed its customers that while the tariffs do not affect semiconductors, they do affect memory modules and SSD storage.
As a result, the prices of these components will be "surcharged," which will impact a wide range of equipment, from computers to data center servers to vehicles. Micron's approach will likely be the same as many other storage module vendors.
In another concrete case, Blackmagic has announced a price increase for its cameras: the Pyxis 12K goes from $4,995 to $6,595, a 32% increase. The Pyxis 6K is now priced at $3,295 instead of $2,995, and the Ursa Cine 17K comes back at $32,995 (compared to $29,995 normally). The manufacturer clarifies that these increases do not affect its DaVinci Resolve software or its Blackmagic Cloud cloud service. And that only the United States is affected by these increases.
At Framework, a specialist in modular laptops, the decision was taken to temporarily withdraw from sale several models of the Laptop 13 (in this case the Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U versions). "We have set the price of our laptops when the tariffs on imports from Taiwan were 0%,” explains the manufacturer. Framework
"With 10% tariffs, we would be forced to sell entry-level models at a loss. Other consumer goods manufacturers have made the same calculations and decisions, even if most have not publicly acknowledged it," the company adds.
For car manufacturers, the shower is just as cold. Volkswagen has decided to suspend exports of Audi models to the United States. This is also the case for the British group Jaguar Land Rover, which suspends the delivery of its vehicles for the entire month of April. The customs tariffs represent an increase of between $5,000 and $10,000 (or more) on the price of JLR cars.
These examples could well multiply as companies get their calculators working. Apple is shipping large quantities of iPhones from India to build up enough stock to last a few months without having to raise prices. Bloomberg reports that the crowds at the manufacturer's stores are worthy of Christmas: consumers are going there in large numbers to buy the iPhone they've been eyeing for a while now, without crossing the Rubicon until now.
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