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Editor’s note: Tariff Terminal is a new series exploring how trade policy, tariffs, and customs developments impact the electronics manufacturing industry. This is the first installment.
If you work in surface mount assembly, EMS, or anywhere along the electronics supply chain, you probably think of tariffs as something that happens upstream: raw materials, bulk commodities, maybe the occasional headache with Chinese imports. Steel and aluminum tariffs? That’s someone else’s problem.
Not anymore.
On April 2, President Trump signed a sweeping new proclamation that fundamentally restructures how Section 232 “national security” tariffs apply to steel, aluminum, copper, and their derivative products. The changes took effect on April 6, and the ripple effects are headed straight for the electronics industry.
A Quick Primer on Section 232
Since 2018, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a statute that allows the President to restrict imports that threaten national security. Over time, the program expanded to include copper and hundreds of “derivative” products: Goods that contain these metals but aren’t raw metal themselves, such as cables, transformers, connectors, enclosures, and circuit board materials.
Under the old rules, importers of derivative products paid tariffs only on the metal content portion of the product’s value. That meant if you imported a cable harness worth $100 and the copper inside it accounted for $30 of that value, you paid the tariff on $30. It was complicated to calculate, but for many electronics importers, it kept the duty bill manageable.
That system is gone.
To continue reading this article, which appeared in the May 2026 SMT007 Magazine, click here.
