The tech industry is once again on a knife’s edge after President Trump signed an executive action on Monday delaying the implementation of his reciprocal tariffs on countries around the world until Aug. 1.
The decision came just days before the prior July 9 deadline when many of Trump’s original “Liberation Day” tariffs were to take hold. Trump also began sending out letters to select trading partners, including Japan and South Korea, which he said will face 25% levies if they don’t reach agreements with the United States by Aug. 1.
For the tech industry, the announcements mark a return to the uncertainty of April, which sent both the S&P 500 and Dow plummeting, as Trump seeks to remake the country’s various trade relationships.
“It’s been two steps forward, one step back,” explained Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster.
Read more: 5 ways to tariff-proof your finances
“We’re still moving forward, but what it means for Big Tech is that it opens up this unknown about what happens now and in that … December quarter, because any changes probably won’t really start to take effect until midway through the September quarter,” Munster added.
QINGDAO, CHINA – JULY 08 2025: Aerial view of a container terminal in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province Tuesday, July 08, 2025. (Photo credit should read YU FANGPING / Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images) ·Feature China via Getty Images
What happens after the Aug. 1 deadline, though, is anyone’s guess. For now, Trump says he won’t extend the deadline, but he’s also pushed it out twice already.
If there’s one bright side to the tariff changes, it’s that they don’t impact the ongoing trade negotiations between the US and China, which could have resulted in price hikes on tech products. According to the US International Trade Commission, Trump’s tariffs on the country will largely remain suspended through Aug. 10.
Then there are companies like Nvidia (NVDA) and Apple (AAPL), which have won a reprieve from the immediate threat of tariffs but face individual actions from the Trump administration. Nvidia is contending with a ban on the sale of its chips to China, while Apple is staring down an additional 25% tariff if it doesn’t begin building its devices in the US instead of relying on manufacturing in other countries, including China and India.
And every tech company is waiting on tenterhooks for the administration to announce its tariffs on semiconductor imports.
It all adds up to a confusing summer for Big Tech.
Among the biggest challenges for Big Tech is the inability to plan how to address the impact of tariffs in the coming months. What’s more, with the US pushing for countries to exclude China from their supply chains, there’s no guarantee the current cooling in the trade war between the two superpowers won’t go hot again.
“I think the uncertainty, in some ways, is arguably even worse than the tariffs, certainly in the near term, because when you don’t know what’s going to happen, and there’s a threat of relatively high numbers, then people … are going to be more cautious and wait to see what happens,” TECHnalysis Research president and chief analyst Bob O’Donnell told Yahoo Finance.
“And so the question will be, does it just go away again? Is it more TACO tariffs or not?” he added, referring to the acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” a line of thinking on Wall Street that says Trump’s tariff threats are more bluster than actual economic policy.
While Apple and Nvidia often come up in tariff discussions, they’re far from the only tech companies that could take a hit with the latest round of levy threats. Dell (DELL), for instance, manufactures some of its PCs in Malaysia, which is facing a 25% tariff, and Samsung, which is set to launch its latest smartphones, could get hit with a 25% tariff on devices it ships to the US from its home country of South Korea.
Semiconductor companies also face the prospect of tariffs related to the Commerce Department’s ongoing Section 232 investigation into the national security implications of producing chips abroad.
FILE PHOTO: A view shows the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Wall Street entrance in New York City, U.S., April 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper/ File Photo ·Reuters / Reuters
That puts chip manufacturers in a difficult position as, despite recent announcements that companies like TSMC (TSM) and Samsung are building plants in the US, the majority of semiconductors are still fabricated in Asia.
According to Bernstein senior analyst Stacy Rasgon, even if the Section 232 investigation doesn’t result in new chip tariffs, semiconductor manufacturers could still be hurt if tariffs on other tech goods push prices higher and force consumers to cut back on spending.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
Tech companies aren’t the only ones left in the lurch amid the latest tariff uncertainty. Levies cloud corporate executives’ vision as to the timing of large purchase orders.
“The example we like to use is you’re about to do a major Windows 11 refresh on a fleet of a few 1000 laptops,” Forrester vice president and research director Mark Moccia explained.
“Now, all of a sudden, you get tariffs on the entire machine itself, or parts of the machine that are assembled. Now that means you’re going to be paying a lot more potentially for that laptop replacement fleet.” Moccia added.
Consumers and corporations are also left wondering what tariffs mean for their wallets. Fears that the levies will send prices of everything from smartphones and PCs to monitors and other accessories have already impacted sales and could hurt them in the second half of 2025.
“In the near term, probably the biggest dynamic we have seen is pull-in activity, not only on products, but also [on] chips,” explained KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh.
Pull-in, or pull forward, refers to sales of products that customers purchase before they might otherwise choose to in an effort to get ahead of price hikes.
“The three areas where we’ve seen the most amount of pull-in activities have been in PCs, smartphones, and in data centers. And since it’s a pull-forward demand, it doesn’t create any new demand,” Vinh explained. “We’ve seen the overall supply chain, and the outlook for the second half, and even full-year, to some extent, down ticked a little bit.”
Now, countries, industries, and companies have to wait to see how Trump’s tariff plan plays out.
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Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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