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Trump’s Latest Tariff Threats Could Bring New Concerns For Tech, Media Investors

Sep 30, 2025 14:59:00 -0400 by Reshma Kapadia | #Trade

The Trump administration is exploring tariffs on foreign-made electronic products based on the number of chips they contain. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Key Points

As 25% tariffs on heavy trucks and 100% levies on some branded pharmaceuticals go into effect on Wednesday, consultants are warning technology and other investors that they may be underestimating the impact—and scope—of the administration’s latest tariff threats.

Over the past couple of days, President Donald Trump has unveiled a spate of tariff developments. In a fact sheet, the administration unveiled 10% tariffs on lumber and timber and 25% tariffs on upholstered wooden furniture products and kitchen cabinets starting Oct. 14.

Those tariffs will rise next year—to 30% for furniture products and 50% for cabinets. The levies wouldn’t be stacked on top of “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from individual countries, while goods from the U.K. or the European Union will have levies set at a lower rate as agreed upon in trade deals they struck with the administration.

But political consultants say it’s the threats of more tariffs, sectoral and on new product lines, and nuances around looming levies on sectors such as technology and Hollywood that are raising their concerns.

Ed Mills, who heads Washington policy for Raymond James, says investors may be too complacent that companies could invest their way out of tariffs, such as Apple’s commitment to invest $600 billion over the next four years. Trump said companies that invest in the U.S., like Apple, could avoid 100% tariffs on imported semiconductors.

The administration is exploring tariffs on foreign-made electronics based on the number of chips they contain as it tries to boost domestic chip manufacturing, Reuters reported last week.

Such a move could have bigger consequences for a host of technology companies. “If there is a quota system, such that there is one for one relief for everything you produce domestically, it would be a long time before all the semiconductors coming into the U.S. would be tariff-free. There was an expectation with Taiwan Semiconductor making a plant in Arizona would translate to a ‘get out of tariff’ free card,” says Mills. “It could be that only 10% to 20% is excluded and 80% is tariffed. That is not baked into expectations. I’m getting questions from clients about whether they are too complacent. My answer is yes.”

The White House may have also opened a new front in its trade war with President Donald Trump’s post this week that he would levy 100% tariffs on movies made abroad, targeting an industry the U.S. already dominates.

The administration has used tariffs to target goods trade deficits with countries like China, Vietnam, and others that sell the U.S. more goods than they buy. But the U.S. sells far more services—including the digital licensing of movies—to the rest of the world and boasts a services surplus.

Putting tariffs on a digital stream or electronic file could put the U.S. in breach of an e-commerce moratorium it had fought for at the World Trade Organization that expires next March and could open it up to retaliation from trading partners—and deal a blow to an important line of revenue for studios and make vulnerable other lucrative streams of service revenue, says Barry Appleton, an international trade lawyer and co-director of the Center for International Law at New York Law School.

“Tariffing movies is a sledgehammer against an American crown jewel export,” Appleton says, adding that the move raises the risk of a more expansive fight. “Not only are you going to see a trade war on services but it could also open up a war on intellectual property rights, which we have already seen with pharmaceuticals,” Appleton says.

The administration hasn’t offered details on how it would impose tariffs on movies. Movies and books are excluded from action under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump used for many of his tariffs, and sectoral-tariffs under Section 232 likely wouldn’t apply. The administration could turn to Section 301, the trade authority that allows for “fees or restrictions on the services of” the “foreign country” that applies unreasonable or discriminatory policies.

“If they decide to move ahead with a Section 301 investigation and apply tariffs directly to movies, that would be unprecedented given they would be applying tariffs to services or digital goods,” says Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding, who previously worked in the Commerce Department and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

For macro strategists like Mike Medeiros of Wellington Management, the greatest risk is that the tariff threat could open U.S. companies up for retaliation and revive concerns about digital service tax that has been implemented in several European countries. “The market has more confidence the peak in the effective tariff rate is in,” Medeiros says. “But this is a reminder that goods and services are still on the table.”

And analysts caution that more new probes into product lines and sectors could be forthcoming ahead of the Supreme Court’s hearing on whether the IEEPA tariffs are illegal.

Veda Partners’ Henrietta Treyz notes a wider lag between the investigations being started and announced, giving businesses and investors less time to prepare, and laying the groundwork for tariffs to be imposed retroactively if the higher court rules against the administration, creating the need for a quick way to keep tariff revenue flowing.

Corrections & AmplificationsAn earlier version of this article misspelled Mike Medeiros’ last name and misidentified him as Mark.

Write to Reshma Kapadia at reshma.kapadia@barrons.com