President Donald Trump’s tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, Canada, and China are in effect, but Big Tech companies have remained mostly silent despite the potential impact tariffs could have on their businesses.
I’ve written about this twice already: once shortly after Trump announced them in February, and again a week later after the initial 10 percent tariff on China went into effect and the Mexico and Canada tariffs had been paused. In both articles, The Verge reached out to many companies in Big Tech and adjacent industries, and the vast majority of them declined to comment or didn’t reply at all. The ones that did reply usually gave generic statements.
We’ve done another round of outreach, and while there are a few new comments, things are mostly the same. Here’s what’s new:
Otherwise, the situation is similar to the last time I wrote about it, with very minor changes:
But as I wrote previously, the Trump administration is chaotic, so the nature of the tariffs could change at any moment. The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a one-month exemption on the automotive tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, according to Politico. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had signaled yesterday that the administration could announce some sort of compromise on the Mexico and Canada tariffs as early as today.
We may not see the real lasting effects of these tariffs on tech companies until their next major product launches. Could the iPhone 17 have a higher price? Will you have to pay more for the next generation of Ray-Ban Meta glasses? We just don’t know yet.
