Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Sunday that President Trump’s decision to exempt iPhones from his trade tariffs smacks of corruption.
The Massachusetts Democrat said the Trump administration’s recent reciprocal tariff carve-out for cellphones, laptops and other electronics is a “special deal” for Apple CEO Tim Cook, who reportedly donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee.
“As if the chaos weren’t enough, he adds a nice layer of corruption for everyone to see,” Ms. Warren said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And that is a special deal for his CEO donor, and that is an exception to the China deal for iPhones.”
“Look, here’s the problem. You can’t get an economy strong and moving forward when it’s loaded with chaos and corruption,” she said. “Investors will not invest in the United States when Donald Trump is playing red light, green light with tariffs and saying, oh, and for my special donors, you get a special exception.”
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol issued a “Reciprocal Tariff Exclusion for Specified Products” guidance late Friday, exempting smartphones, computers, semiconductors and other electronics from some levies.
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on Chinese imports as high as 145%. China has retaliated with a 125% tariff on U.S. imports.
The new electronic exemptions are being billed as welcome news for U.S. consumers, who economists warned would have been forced to pay over $2,000 for a new iPhone.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board also noted that Mr. Cook and other leaders of “giant companies that assemble these products abroad” are big winners “and now get a reprieve, at least for as long as they remain in Mr. Trump’s good political graces.”
“Apple CEO Tim Cook is a big winner, as are Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and the executives and shareholders of Hewlett-Packard and TSMC,” they wrote.
“This is no rap on them, since their job is look out for the best interests of shareholders and that means getting tariff carve-outs when they can,” they said. “Some of the companies may not even have sought exemptions, though the opacity of the process for getting one is the Beltway Swamp’s dream.”
