American consumers are in for a rough time as the Trump administration’s trade wars heat up. While many economists have predicted higher prices on most finished goods, individual companies have been hesitant to put numbers on exactly how big their bumps will be.
In a recent interview with The Telegraph (spotted by Digital Trends), Acer CEO Jason Chen was a little more precise: retail prices on laptops in the US will go up 10 percent. “We have to adjust the end user price to reflect the tariff… we think 10pc probably will be the default price increase because of the import tax. It’s very straightforward.”
Trump’s 10 percent tariff imposed on goods from China is in addition to other existing import fees. Consumers will see the higher prices on Acer laptops starting in March 2025.
Trump has threatened increased taxes on goods and materials from several American trading partners, including close allies like Canada and Mexico and chip giant (and Acer home territory) Taiwan. Chen said that moving manufacturing centers out of China, as ASRock has already done, could be a solution. Though Chen floated US-based production as an alternative, labor and material costs would make the United States a poor substitute for all but the most expensive finished products.
It doesn’t help that Trump has more targeted tariffs on essential import materials like steel and aluminum, further exacerbating manufacturing costs in domestic industries such as automobiles. Though the Biden administration tried to stimulate domestic chip production with the CHIPS Act, it’ll be several years before foundry capacity increases can scale up.
Most laptops and other finished electronics are assembled in China, including the vast majority of lines from the industry’s biggest players, like Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Asus, and HP. All of them will face the same tariffs on finished laptops and other goods. As the Consumer Technology Association and others have noted, American buyers will have to get used to rising prices for computers and other electronics, possibly for the length of Trump’s four-year term.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.