On April 2nd Eastern Time, after the US government announced the imposition of up to 34% "equivalent tariffs" on Chinese goods imported to the US, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that China firmly opposes this and will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate interests. I didn't expect that after a day, China's countermeasures would come so quickly!
On the evening of April 4th Beijing time, the Tariff Commission of the State Council announced that, in accordance with the basic principles of international law such as the Tariff Law of the People's Republic of China, the Customs Law of the People's Republic of China, and the Foreign Trade Law of the People's Republic of China, and with the approval of the State Council, tariffs will be imposed on imported goods originating in the United States starting from 12:01 pm on April 10th, 2025. The relevant matters are as follows:
1、 An additional 34% tariff will be imposed on all imported goods originating in the United States on top of the current applicable tariff rate.
2、 The current bonded and tax reduction policies remain unchanged, and the additional tariffs imposed this time will not be reduced.
3、 Goods that have been shipped from the place of origin before 12:01 on April 10, 2025 and imported between 12:01 on April 10, 2025 and 24:00 on May 13, 2025, will not be subject to the additional tariffs specified in this announcement.
Although the equivalent tariffs recently imposed by the United States have temporarily exempted items such as steel, drugs, and semiconductors, the previous rounds of tariff increases have raised the export tariffs on Chinese semiconductors and other related items to the United States to between 20% and 70%. China's recent imposition of tariffs has not exempted semiconductor and related items originating from the United States. So, what specific impact does China's imposition of tariffs on imported goods originating from the United States have on the semiconductor industry? According to Chinese customs data, the total amount of products imported by China from the United States in 2024 is approximately 163.624 billion US dollars (about 1.16 trillion yuan), accounting for 6.2% of China's total annual imports. Among them, mechanical and electronic products rank first, with an amount of about 37.9 billion US dollars (approximately 275.9 billion yuan), accounting for about 23.17% of the total amount of imported products from the United States. Among them, the amount of integrated circuit products is about 11.8 billion US dollars (approximately 83.9 billion yuan); The amount of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and components is approximately 4.5 billion US dollars (about 31.9 billion yuan). Recently, after communicating with several industry experts, Xinzhixun analyzed the impact of China's tariffs on the semiconductor industry chain. Firstly, in terms of chip design (EDA and IP), the headquarters of top EDA and IP giants such as Cadence, Synopsys, and Seimens EDA are all in the United States, and their core research and development is mainly in the United States. This also means that the EDA and IP products sold by these manufacturers in China may face an additional 34% tariff. This move will undoubtedly increase the cost for domestic chip design manufacturers to use these three major American EDA manufacturers to a certain extent, but it is also conducive to promoting domestic chip design manufacturers to increase their adoption rate of domestic EDA, which is beneficial for domestic EDA manufacturers. However, given that the cost of replicating EDA and IP research and development is almost negligible, in order to maintain market share in the domestic market, these three major EDA manufacturers may not be able to fully offset the impact of tariffs by raising prices by 34% for Chinese customers. The author recently contacted the heads of two leading American EDA companies in China, one of which stated that "the headquarters is still in the process of understanding." The other has not responded as of the time of publication. 2、 From the perspective of chip manufacturing, it is mainly divided into two main stages: wafer manufacturing and packaging and testing. The division of labor in the modern semiconductor industry is relatively detailed, and wafer manufacturing and packaging testing are carried out in different factories in different regions. However, most of the global wafer manufacturing and packaging testing capacity is concentrated in Asia.
The "ad valorem percentage" standard refers to the value-added portion of non originating materials manufactured and processed in a certain country (region) that exceeds 30% of the value of the goods obtained. The formula is as follows:
However, some analyses suggest that packaging testing may have an impact on the determination of origin for mature process analog chips or discrete devices. For example, if Texas Instruments' analog chip wafers produced in the United States are placed for testing in Malaysia, their place of origin may be identified as Malaysia. Another senior person engaged in supply chain and import/export business revealed to Xinzhixun that the wafers of a US analog chip manufacturer they serve are bare chips manufactured in the United States, then packaged overseas, and finally tested at a testing plant in Thailand. Their place of origin is still recognized as the United States. The senior customs expert of the supply chain enterprise stated that "chips are not suitable for specific quantities, that is, regardless of whether there is a growth of ≥ 30%, as long as the (bare chip) is produced in the United States, the country of origin is recognized as the United States. However, in actual operation, it is recognized based on the goods label. If the goods label does not indicate the United States, it is another matter." If the enterprise only writes the place of sealing and testing, then that place is the country of origin. So from various perspectives, customs may still tend to judge the origin of chips more based on the place of wafer manufacturing, especially for high-value advanced process chips. But it is unclear whether low-end chips (including low-end analog chips and discrete devices) with partially mature processes may use the packaging location as the "origin". However, some wafers originating from the United States have utilized advanced packaging technology in packaging factories outside the United States, achieving a value-added of ≥ 30%. If relevant materials can be provided to prove this, it is possible for the packaging and testing site to be recognized as the place of origin. For example, a certain AI chip wafer manufactured in the United States may be packaged using advanced packaging technology in packaging and testing factories outside the United States, and may also package multiple HBM chips from SK Hynix in South Korea, which is likely to achieve a value-added of ≥ 30%. From the perspective of the impact on specific American chip manufacturers, most of the products of Nvidia, Apple, AMD (including Celings), Qualcomm, Broadcom, Marvell and other major chip design manufacturers in the United States are outsourced to TSMC in Taiwan, China, China (some are outsourced to Samsung in South Korea), and the seal test is also mainly completed in Asia, so it will not be affected by China's tariff policy against the United States and Canada. Even if some of the chips exported to China by these manufacturers are manufactured by GlobalFoundries in the United States, they can still use GlobalFoundries' overseas wafer foundries or switch foundries to avoid them. In contrast, Intel, GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments, Micron ADI、Microchip、 American chip giants such as Anson, Skyworks, and Qorvo have their own wafer fabs in the United States, and the chips manufactured by their American wafer fabs exported to China by these manufacturers may be affected by China's imposition of tariffs on the United States. 1. Taking Intel as an example, its wafer fabs are mainly located in the United States. Although it also has wafer fabs in Israel and Ireland, its production capacity is limited. At the same time, Intel has also outsourced some of its processor cores to TSMC for manufacturing. Overall, most of Intel's wafer manufacturing is still in the United States. It should be pointed out that Intel's packaging factories, in addition to the United States, also have packaging factories in Ireland, Chengdu, China, and Malaysia (the construction of the Polish packaging and testing factory has been suspended), and all have advanced packaging processes. Among them, the Chengdu factory in China is Intel's largest packaging and testing production base in the world. In late October last year, Intel also announced the expansion of its Chengdu packaging and testing base, which will provide packaging and testing services for server chips on the basis of existing client product packaging and testing. Data shows that since 2019, Intel Chengdu's annual import and export, as well as domestic transit trade, have exceeded the 200 billion yuan mark. If Intel's chip and wafer manufacturing for exports to China is completed in Ireland or Israel, then exports to China will not be significantly affected by China's tariffs on the US and Canada. However, if the wafer manufacturing is completed at Intel's US wafer fab, even if the final packaging and testing are completed in Malaysia or elsewhere, if a value increase of ≥ 30% cannot be achieved and the origin is still recognized as the United States, then imports to China will inevitably be affected by this tariff policy. As for Intel's closed test factory in Chengdu, China, because it needs to import wafers, some of which may be manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan, China, China (such as some CPU, GPU, NPU cores), and the other part may be produced by Intel's American wafer factory, it may be affected to some extent by China's tariff policy. Taking Intel's latest AI PC chip Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V series processor, which is being tested at its Chengdu factory, as an example, its CPU, GPU, and NPU cores are all manufactured using TSMC's N3B process node, while the platform controller chip is manufactured using TSMC's N6 process node. This means that the main core die of this chip is all manufactured by TSMC! Therefore, it is expected that this chip will not be significantly affected by China's tariff policy this time.
However, Intel's previous generation AI PC chip Meteor Lake's Compute Tile was still manufactured using Intel's EUV based Intel 4 process technology at Intel's US wafer fab, while other cores (GPU Tile, SoC Tile (including E-core and NPU), I/O Tile, etc.) were manufactured by TSMC. Therefore, even if this chip is also being tested in Chengdu, it will face a certain degree of tariff policy impact. In addition, Intel is currently vigorously developing its wafer foundry business, especially with its cutting-edge process technology and advanced packaging capacity mainly located in the United States. If customers entrust it with chip foundry, it will also face tariff issues when exporting to China. This will to some extent affect its OEM business in acquiring customers from China. So for Intel, if it wants to reduce the impact of China's tariff policy, it needs to place the wafer manufacturing of its chips exported to China at wafer fabs in Ireland or Israel; Or through some adjustments, its chips can achieve a value-added of ≥ 30% in overseas testing factories such as Malaysia, and change the country of origin certification; Alternatively, the main products sold to China could be completely outsourced to TSMC, such as Lunar Lake. However, Intel's latest PC and server chips are manufactured based on its own Intel 18A process, and it may be difficult to achieve a complete conversion to TSMC's process or to the Irish wafer fab (where Intel is just preparing to transfer the Intel 3 process) for production in the short term. In the short term, most of Intel's chips manufactured in US wafer fabs for export to China will be affected by this Chinese tariff policy. This will also put significant cost growth pressure on Intel's chips sold in China, and it will be difficult to pass them on to customers through price increases, especially since Intel's competitor AMD's products exported to China are not affected by China's tariff policies. This also means that AMD's products may have a more significant cost advantage compared to Intel's products in the future, and Intel will face greater pressure in the Chinese PC and server market. It should be pointed out that the chips of Mobileye, a smart driving chip manufacturer under Intel, are mainly produced by external wafer foundries such as TSMC, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics. Intel's Gaudi AI chips (including those supplied to Walt) and consumer GPU cores are all manufactured by TSMC, so it is expected that these chips will not be affected by China's tariff policy on the United States. 2. Although Grofond currently has wafer fabs in New York State, it also has significant production capacity in its new factories in Dresden, Germany and Singapore. Its main customers include AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Marvel, and others. For example, AMD's first generation Zen architecture processors were manufactured using the Grofond 14nm process at wafer fabs in the United States (although AMD's similar products have been delisted, and all mainstream products are currently manufactured by TSMC); Some of Qualcomm and Broadcom's RF devices and analog chips, as well as some of Marvel's in car Ethernet PHY chips, have been outsourced to GlobalFoundries. Due to its main focus on manufacturing chips with a manufacturing process of over 10nm, Grofond's customers do not have high requirements for the manufacturing process, and it has its own wafer foundries in Germany and Singapore outside the United States. Therefore, it is entirely possible for Grofond to transfer the wafers that customers plan to export to China to wafer fabs outside the United States for manufacturing, in order to avoid the impact of China's tariff policies on its customers. Of course, this requires some time to adjust. 3. Texas Instruments' wafer manufacturing is mainly located in the United States, distributed in Texas, Oregon, Utah, and Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Texas Instruments also has closed testing factories in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Chengdu, China. At present, most of Texas Instruments' chip imports to China are expected to face the impact of China's 34% tariff policy on the United States and Canada. This move is a positive development for other non American analog chip and MCU manufacturers that compete with Texas Instruments. 4. Micron Micron's wafer manufacturing capacity is mainly located in Idaho and New York, Singapore (mainly NAND capacity), Japan (mainly DRAM capacity) and Taiwan, China, China (mainly DRAM capacity), and has seal testing plants in Malaysia, Xi'an, China, and Taiwan, China, China (Micron is still expanding its local seal testing capacity). At the same time, it has also cooperated with external seal testing plants, such as Licheng.
In May 2023, Micron's products sold in China were required to stop purchasing Micron's products due to failure to pass China's cybersecurity review. Operators of critical information infrastructure in China have been instructed to cease purchasing Micron's products. As a result, some Chinese domestic storage module manufacturers that use Micron wafers have also reduced their procurement ratio of Micron storage wafers. According to Meguiar's assessment of this matter in 2023, its overall revenue from companies headquartered in Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong accounts for a quarter of its total revenue, and Meguiar estimates that about half of its revenue from customers in Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong will be affected. Although Micron announced an investment of over 4.3 billion yuan in 2024 to enhance the production capacity of Micron's Xi'an factory. However, China's restrictions on Micron still exist. So, with Micron's revenue and market share already shrinking in China, the products manufactured by Micron's US wafer fabs are also facing a surge in tariffs on exports to China, which will further affect its revenue and market share in the Chinese market. However, Meguiar's exports to China are less manufactured by American fabs, and even some of them can be replaced by allocating the capacity of its fabs in Singapore, Taiwan, China and Japan. Therefore, the actual impact of China's tariffs on the United States and Canada on Micron may be relatively limited. 5. As a globally renowned MCU manufacturer, Microchip's wafer fabs are mainly located in the United States, including one in Arizona (announced for sale in March this year), one in Oregon (expansion project has been halted), and two in Colorado. Packaging and testing are mainly outsourced to third-party packaging and testing foundries. Therefore, Microchip's products exported to China will also face the impact of China's 34% tariff policy on the United States and Canada. Similarly, this is also a positive development for non American MCU and analog chip manufacturers that compete with Microchip. 6. ADIADI is a leading global manufacturer of analog chips, digital to analog/analog-to-digital converters, power management, radio frequency (RF), and digital and sensor technologies. ADI's wafer fabs are mainly located in Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts in the United States, and there are also wafer fabs in Ireland. In terms of packaging and testing, ADI has its own packaging and testing factory in Massachusetts, USA, as well as testing factories in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. Packaging is mainly outsourced to third-party packaging manufacturers. At the same time, ADI also entrusts some products to external wafer foundries for manufacturing, including packaging and testing.
Therefore, if the wafer manufacturing of ADI's chips exported to China is completed in US wafer fabs, even if the packaging and testing are completed outside the US, they will still be recognized as originating from the US, and therefore will be affected by China's policy of imposing tariffs on the US. However, it can also utilize Irish wafer fabs or external foundry partners to produce chips that need to be exported to China, in order to eliminate the impact of China's tariff policies on ADI. 7. Ansenmei
As a leading global manufacturer of automotive and industrial image sensors, as well as power semiconductors, ON Semiconductor has wafer fabs in New York, Maine, and Idaho (earlier this year, it also acquired the original NexGen PowerSystems gallium nitride wafer fab in DeWitt, New York), as well as substrate manufacturing plants in Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Malaysia. Its packaging and testing plants are mainly located in Malaysia and the Philippines, and it also has assembly/testing factories for related module products in Leshan, Suzhou, Shenzhen, and Vietnam in China. Among them, the wafers of ON Semiconductor's CMOS image sensors and power semiconductors are mainly manufactured in its US wafer fabs, which also means that the export of chips manufactured by its US wafer fabs to China will be affected by China's policy of imposing tariffs on the US. However, Ansenmei has also outsourced some of its products, with outsourcing accounting for approximately 30% in 2021. 8. Skyworks, a major manufacturer of RF devices and wireless communication chips, has its GaAs HBT wafer fab located in Newbury Park, California, USA; Its GaAs HBT, pHEMT, and GaN wafer fabs are located in Woburn, Massachusetts, USA; Its SAW/BAW Filter WL-CSP wafer fab is located in Bedok, Singapore; We also have a SAW/BAW Filter wafer fab in Osaka, Japan. Skyworks' backend testing factory is located in Mexicali, Mexico. Obviously, Skyworks' SAW/BAW filter products are not manufactured domestically in the United States, so they will not be affected by China's tariffs on the US and Canada. However, the core wafer manufacturing of Skyworks' GaAs HBT, pHEMT, GaN and other related products is in the United States, so exports to China may be affected by China's tariff policies towards the United States and Canada. It depends on whether the final module products after packaging, testing and assembly have achieved a value added of ≥ 30%. Or, in other words, will customs consider the place of origin of such analog devices as the final module assembly location. 9. QorvoQorvo is also a globally renowned manufacturer of RF devices and wireless communication chips. It has a large manufacturing and testing base in Greensboro, North Carolina, mainly producing GaAs, GaN, and BAW filter products; The products produced by the factory in Albuquerque, Florida cover almost all of Qorvo's business lines; Hillsborough, Oregon, USA has a GaAs device factory; There is an advanced Microwave Module Assembly (AMMA) factory located in Richardson, Texas, USA; We have an assembly and testing factory for filters in Heredia, Costa Rica; We have assembly, packaging, and reliability testing factories in Beijing and Texas, China, mainly producing advanced cellular network related products with highly integrated Qorvo; We also have assembly, testing, and packaging factories in Binian, Philippines. It should be pointed out that in December 2023, Qorvo announced that it had reached a final agreement with China's Lite On Precision. Lixun Precision will acquire Qorvo's assembly business and assembly testing factories in Beijing, China and Dezhou, Shandong. Meanwhile, Luxshare Precision will assemble and test products for Qorvo under the newly signed long-term supply agreement. Qorvo's core wafer manufacturing is mainly in the United States, and the related seal test and module product manufacturing is mainly in the United States, Chinese Mainland and Costa Rica. Therefore, the export of its products to China may also be affected by China's tariff policies towards the United States and Canada, depending on whether the final module products have achieved a value-added of ≥ 30%. Or, in other words, will customs consider the place of origin of such analog devices as the final module assembly location. Even so, Qorvo's factory in Chinese Mainland, which is in the process of manufacturing modules for Qorvo, still needs Qorvo to import its wafers produced in the United States to the mainland, which will undoubtedly face the impact of China's tariff policy on the United States.
3、 Semiconductor equipment
For the semiconductor industry chain, wafer manufacturing can be regarded as a core link, and in this link, semiconductor equipment is an essential and top priority. Although China's domestic semiconductor equipment has achieved rapid development and significant progress in recent years, Chinese wafer manufacturers still have relatively high demand for equipment from top American semiconductor equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials, Panlin Group, Kelei, and Teradyne.
Although according to customs data, the amount of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and components directly imported from the United States by China in 2024 is only about 4.5 billion US dollars (approximately 31.9 billion yuan), in reality, these American semiconductor equipment manufacturers do not only export from the United States to China, but also have related semiconductor equipment assembly plants outside the United States. Due to the fact that the identification of the origin of semiconductor equipment is usually based on the final assembly location, their factories located outside the United States may become their direct source for exporting equipment to China, such as Singapore, Israel, South Korea, and other places.
However, it should be pointed out that according to China's rules of origin determination, if the origin of the key subsystems of the relevant semiconductor equipment is the United States and accounts for more than 70% of the entire equipment, that is, if the equipment fails to achieve a value-added of ≥ 30% at the assembly site, its origin may still be recognized as the United States.
In addition, these American equipment manufacturers also need to comply with US export control policies, and related equipment cannot be exported to China. Previously, the application materials were investigated by the US Department of Commerce for exporting semiconductor equipment from South Korea to China; South Korean company Ronda Korea's export of Panlin Group equipment to China has also been investigated by the US Department of Commerce.
1. Application materials
Applied Materials (AMAT) is currently the second largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in the world, second only to the Dutch lithography machine giant ASML. Its products mainly cover equipment for thin film deposition (CVD, PVD, etc.), ion implantation, etching, rapid heat treatment, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), metrological inspection, etc., and have over 50% market share in multiple fields.
According to the financial report for the fourth quarter of the 2024 fiscal year ending on October 27, 2024, Applied Materials achieved a record breaking revenue of $7.05 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5%. Among them, Chinese Mainland accounted for 30% of the sales of Applied Materials in the fourth fiscal quarter, lower than 32% in the third fiscal quarter and 44% in the same period of 2023. Sales from Chinese Mainland fell 28% year on year to US $2.14 billion.
According to the official website of Applied Materials, it has large-scale production facilities in the United States and Singapore, and has additional production facilities in Germany, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, China and the United States.
Therefore, under the premise of compliance, equipment assembled and produced in factories in Singapore and Israel using application materials may not be affected by China's tariff policies towards the United States and Canada when exported to China. The equipment produced by Panlin Group's US factory for export to China will face a 34% tariff.
2. Panlin Group
Lam Group (LAM) is the fourth largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in the world, with its main products including etching equipment, thin film deposition equipment, strip&clean, copper plating equipment, and more. Data from around 2020 shows that Panlin Group holds approximately 45% of the global market share in etching equipment, ranking first globally. Among them, conductor etching holds over 50% of the global market share, ranking first globally; Dielectric etching accounts for over 20% of the global market share, ranking second globally; CVD accounts for approximately 20% of the global market share, ranking third globally.
According to the financial report of the fourth quarter of 2024 released by Fanlin Group as of December 29, 2024, the quarter was $4.376 billion, up 5% month on month, of which the revenue from Chinese Mainland accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 31%.
Obviously, the main equipment manufacturing factories of Panlin Group are mostly located in the United States, and it is expected that the export of related equipment manufactured in the United States to China will be affected by China's policy of imposing tariffs on the United States. However, Fanlin Group also has relevant factories in South Korea, Austria, Taiwan, China, and Malaysia. If it can allocate the capacity of these overseas factories, it may reduce the impact. Of course, this premise is that these overseas factories of Panlin Group have the ability and sufficient production capacity to produce equipment for export to China.
3. Ke Lei
KLA is the world's largest semiconductor measurement and testing equipment supplier, with a product range covering various front-end optical and electron beam inspection equipment in the processing technology, including defect detection, overlay, CD measurement, film thickness, and more.
As of December 31, 2024, the second quarter financial report of Ke Lei for the fiscal year 2025 shows that its revenue for the quarter was $824.5 million. Prior to this, in December 2024, Bren Higgins, Chief Financial Officer of Ke Lei, pointed out at the UBS Global Technology and Artificial Intelligence Conference that with the new round of US export controls on China, it is expected to affect its revenue of $500 million, of which 70% can be attributed to system related revenue and the other 30% to service related sales.
Bren Higgins also pointed out that in the current situation, it is expected that Ke Lei's revenue in China will decrease by about 20% year-on-year in the fiscal year 2025. It is expected that the Chinese market will account for over 20% of its total sales in the fiscal year 2025, which is lower than about 40% in the fiscal year 2024.
According to relevant information from Xinzhixun, in addition to manufacturing factories in the United States, Koley also has manufacturing factories in Migdal HaEmek in Israel and Wales in the United Kingdom. Among them, the Migdal HaEmek factory in Israel currently has about 800 employees and is rapidly expanding. This technical team mainly supports the research and manufacturing activities of several important business departments, including the Optical Metrology Department (OMD), FaST Department, Enterprise Platform Group, and Customer Service. That is to say, the Koley Israel factory mainly produces optical metrology equipment. The general manager of a second-hand semiconductor equipment supplier in China revealed to Xinzhixun that Kelei's bright and dark field equipment is mainly manufactured in the United States,
According to relevant information, apart from its factories in the United States, Terada has also shifted its focus to (Malaysia), Malaysia, and Vietnam (newly added) in Suzhou, China since 2024. Due to the fact that Terada's main source of revenue comes from Asia, its factory production capacity seems to be more located in Asia. Additionally, there is information indicating that Terada has also established factories in Mexico and Hungary. And these overseas layouts of Terada are mainly aimed at reducing the American technology source content of its products, so that it can better carry out business under the equipment export control of the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands.
Summary: According to the existing rules of origin determination, the origin determination of semiconductor EDA/IP software and semiconductor equipment is relatively clear. However, due to the relatively long industrial chain of chip manufacturing and the fact that most of it is globally divided, there may be some difficulties in determining the origin of some chips based on whether the final testing location brings ≥ 30% value-added. Therefore, it is better to simply use the bare chip origin as the origin. Overall, the tariffs imposed by China on the United States and Canada have relatively little impact on pure chip design companies in the United States, as even if their wafer manufacturing is in the United States, they can still choose wafer foundries located outside the United States to produce and avoid the impact. The main ones affected more are IDM manufacturers, but most of them also have their own wafer fabs outside the United States, and most of them can reduce the impact of Chinese tariffs by adjusting the product portfolio and production capacity of overseas wafer fabs. For semiconductor equipment manufacturers, due to the continuous upgrading of semiconductor equipment export control policies by the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands, many American semiconductor equipment factories have strengthened their overseas factory layout to reduce the impact on their business in China. However, there are still some core products or components that come from the United States. Therefore, it is expected that China's 34% tariff imposed on the United States will still have a certain impact on these American semiconductor equipment manufacturers, especially in the context of China's previous duty-free import of American semiconductor equipment. But this is undoubtedly beneficial for domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Gao Shiwang, Director of the Shanghai Household Appliances and Electronic Products Branch of China's Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products, told Xinzhi News: "Currently, the companies within its association are still in a wait-and-see state regarding the respective tariff policies imposed by China and the United States. It is expected that relevant policies may change in the future, as such a tariff war is unfavorable for both sides." It is worth mentioning that due to the regulations on China's imposition of tariffs on the United States, goods that have been shipped from the place of origin before 12:01 pm on April 10, 2025 and imported between 12:01 pm on April 10, 2025 and 24:00 on May 13, 2025, can be exempted from this tariff. Therefore, many affected semiconductor chip and equipment manufacturers have begun to import in advance in order to stockpile goods and reduce the impact of tariffs. It is reported that after the announcement of China's tariff rules on the United States and Canada, the shipping container fees for US exports to China before April 10th have increased several times.
