President Trump's targeted reciprocal tariffs on countries with which the U.S. runs its largest trade deficits will take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday. In anticipation of the next round of tariffs, U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology plans to impose a tariff surcharge on customers.
Four sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that these incoming tariffs have prompted Micron to issue a surcharge on some products starting Wednesday.
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The company notified its customers in a letter that while Trump's announcement last week exempted semiconductors, which account for part of Micron's portfolio, the tariffs applied to memory modules and solid-state drives (SSDs), the sources said. Those products, used to store data in various products from cars to laptops and data center servers, would now be subject to a surcharge, they said.
Micron's overseas factories are spread out across Asia, including China, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, India, and Singapore, according to the latest trade data.
Bloomberg data maps out Micron's suppliers and customers...
By midnight, these countries will be hit with some of the highest of Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs. Several of them—including countries deeply embedded in Micron's supply chain—face double-digit tariff rates between 10% and 34%. This is on top of Trump's unilateral 10% tariff on all imports for all countries on Saturday.
Data from Goldman's research desk...
Reuters quoted a top-level executive at an Asian NAND module manufacturer as saying that a similar approach to Micron will be taken for U.S. customers this week.
"If they don't want to bear the taxes, we cannot ship the products. We cannot be held accountable for the decisions made by your government," the executive said, adding, "With this kind of tax rate, no company can generously say, 'I'll take on the burden.'"
