The Trump administration in 2019 imposed tariffs on many goods imported from China, which are part of the US-China trade war, but now Apple’s wrist-worn device has been exempted.
That’s according to a letter dated last Friday from the Office of US Trade Representative to the Cupertino tech giant, first spotted by Bloomberg this morning:
President Donald Trump imposed a fifteen percent tariff on a list of goods in September that included the Apple Watch. He cut in half those tariffs as part of an initial trade deal with Beijing that went into effect February 15.
But now, the watch has been officially exempted.
Fearing the tariffs would lead to a price increase for some of its most popular products, Apple last November asked the US government to exclude things such as the Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Pencil and HomePod components from these tariffs.
Apple’s request argued that the watch should be exempted because “it is not strategically important or related to ‘Made in China 2025’ or other Chinese industrial programs.”
And this:
The company also said it had not identified a source outside of China that is able to meet US demand for this product in the coming year.
“Our concern with these tariffs is that the U.S. will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower US growth and competitiveness and higher prices for US consumers,” the Cupertino company wrote in its November 2019 letter sent to the Office of US Trade Representative.