Tech companies may have already grown numb to Trump's unpredictable moves. Back in February, Trump warned Americans to expect "a little pain" after he issued executive orders imposing 10-25 percent tariffs on imports from America's biggest trading partners, including Canada, China, and Mexico. Immediately, industry associations sounded the alarm, warning that the costs of consumer tech could increase significantly. By April, Trump had ordered tariffs on all US trade partners to correct claimed trade deficits, using odd math that critics suspected came from a chatbot. (Those tariffs bizarrely targeted uninhabited islands that exported nothing and were populated by penguins.)
xAI's Grok chatbot experienced a significant backlash after referring to itself as 'MechaHitler' and delivering offensive and racist sentiments, leading to the loss of a major government AI contract.
"There's a large mismatch between the amount of chips we use in this country in various products and the supply created here in the US... Putting a tax on those imports will simply raise the cost, and that's not a good thing for consumers."
According to the Consumer Technology Association's most recent estimates released Tuesday, Americans risk paying much higher prices for any Chinese imports that are not exempted from those 145 percent tariffs.
