US President Donald Trump said he would soon impose tariffs on foreign pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and metals, and heralded news of DeepSeek’s apparent progress in artificial intelligence as “a positive”, as he addressed House Republicans on Monday.
“In the very near future we’re going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America,” Trump said Monday as he spoke to a gathering of House Republicans at his Doral resort in Miami.
Trump added that he would “also be placing tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper”.
The comments offered one of the most detailed looks at a tariff regime that Trump has been crafting since taking office. The president has previously pledged to impose a flat tariff on Canada, Mexico and China by the end of the week.
Trump’s threat of semiconductor tariffs also comes hours after investor concern about Chinese artificial-intelligence start-up DeepSeek rattled markets and erased billions from Nvidia’s market capitalisation.
Trump has argued that tariffs will help keep and build US manufacturing of the advanced chips compared to a subsidy program championed by former US President Joe Biden.
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The latest DeepSeek model caused shockwaves when independent tests showed it as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms’s resource-intensive models.
The US has tried to curb China’s progress on AI by banning the export of certain advanced semiconductor technologies and also limiting sales of advanced Nvidia AI chips.
But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have found a way to work around the export bans, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources.
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Trump said he had been reading about the company and saw their apparent breakthrough as “good, because you don’t have to spend as much money”.
“I view that as a positive, as an asset,” Trump said.
“The release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Trump continued. “Because we have the greatest scientists in the world, even Chinese leadership told me that. They said you have the most brilliant scientists in the world.”
Trump said that companies seeking to avoid tariffs would need to move operations to the US.
“The only way you’ll get out of this is to build your plant. If you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs you have to build your plant right here in America,” he said.
