By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Tech stocks are higher today after shifting messages from the Trump administration over the weekend. According to the latest developments, smartphones, computers, and other consumer electronics will be exempt from President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. But the tech products will face sector specific levies in the near future. Joining us now, we’ve got Tom Forte, who is the Maxim Group managing director and senior consumer internet analyst. Tom, good to see you this morning. So how are you making sense of the tariffs on tech right now and who it’s going to impact the most?
00:44 Tom Forte
Yeah, so stepping back for a minute, I think we’re in a very fluid situation. I think the strategy that President Trump is employing here is he’s trying to reduce the trade deficit, he’s trying to reduce the budget deficit. He’s trying to bring some manufacturing back to the US. The challenge for everyone is to try to determine what does this look like on a near-term basis and what does this look like on a long-term basis. So I think that when it comes to Apple, uh, Tim Cook has a wonderful relationship with President Trump. Also has a wonderful relationship with President Xi. Uh, but it isn’t clear to me at this point in time what the ultimate outcome for Apple will be, but I would almost view the exemption on smartphones as semi-permanent. Meaning that I think that there is going to be some sort of exemption as it pertains to smartphones and things made out of China. And my overriding view is that the markets uh view of Apple’s shares has been too negative, that the outcome may be less bad than feared and this is an example of that.
02:57 Speaker A
So Tom, as as you know, it over the weekend, there was a little bit of whiplash, right? We had this uh reporting that the reciprocal tariffs were off for smartphones, computers, a lot of tech products, but then President Trump and Secretary Howard Luttner saying sectoral tariffs are on and they’re coming in the next month or two. Where does that net out for Apple? I hear you saying you think there’s going to be a smartphone exemption, but did I misread President Trump’s posts talking about how nobody would be off the hook here? You still think there’s going to be that exemption?
03:44 Tom Forte
Yeah, so I’m glad you used the term whiplash. So as someone who’s followed the industry since 96, I feel like I have whiplash and indigestion. I mean, it’s a very challenging market right now. I think that the one of the reasons though the market is so challenging is it’s responding to every headline and it’s not thinking about what’s beyond the headlines. What’s the ultimate strategy here? And the ultimate strategy here is this is, I think when we say tariffs, we really should say trade negotiations. This is a trade negotiation going on between US and China. Uh it isn’t clear to me what the ultimate trade deal might look like, but this is a negotiation. You’ve seen it on both sides. So you had the original tariff announcements by President Trump, you had retaliatory response by China, and there’s a bit of a back and forth. So I think it’s better to frame it as a trade negotiation rather than to look at each individual headline and assume that’s the final outcome.