Trump tariffs are "like Covid again" for PC firms

Huge uncertainty over supply chains will disrupt PC prices and stocks this year

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When it comes to Donald Trump, absolutely nothing is certain. But it's that very uncertainty over the impact and longevity of the president's damaging tariffs policy that is causing concern for PC manufacturers.

“It’s almost like when Covid first came in,” said a spokesperson for UK-based PC manufacturer Wired2Fire, just days after Trump announced his sweeping set of global tariffs. “Do we prepare for disaster recovery or do we try and hire extra staff for extra demand? Nobody had a crystal ball and we didn’t know [how Covid would pan out], and it ended up being [a] huge demand surge in IT. But quite frankly, we were preparing for the worst case. It feels like that all over again.”

International trade negotiation is normally a process conducted over a period of years, with transition periods to allow everyone to adjust. Donald Trump announced a sweeping set of global tariffs in front of the White House only three days before the first set of tariffs came into effect. The world was given more notice - much more notice - of a global pandemic than Trump’s all-encompassing tariffs.

When we spoke to a number of PC manufacturers in the days after the tariffs were announced, they were every bit as stunned and uncertain as global stock markets, which crashed on a scale not seen since the early days of the pandemic in 2020. Many declined to speak on the record, either because they were simply still trying to calibrate the impact on their business or through fear of saying something that might trigger a volatile president (we're not sure if the White House has cancelled its PC Pro subscription yet).