Last week, it reported that a 25% import tariff on Chinese-made GPUs, motherboards, cases and more was applied to the United States, which came into force on May 6 this year and was expected to see prices soar. After all, it turned out that it is not happening after all.

To our best understanding, it will all be like this. PC Mag took up the federal trade document, which the Biden administration announced would extend the Trump-era tariffs for another 1 year, and interpreted it to mean that Chinese-made graphics cards, motherboards and other PC-related assemblies would be put on the wall with a 25 percent tariff once they land in the United States.

This could have been big news outside the US as well. Pricing in other regions tends to reflect U.S. prices, regardless of the local tariff regime. More expensive PC parts in the U.S. could be reflected very well elsewhere, even without equivalent tariffs.

However, what the Notice does actually do is make sure that the current status quo is maintained for another year. The tariff on the notice has already been implemented. Critically, these tariffs include certain exemptions, including yup, GPUs, motherboards, and other classes of devices.

"The U.S. Trade Representative has found that extending these exclusions supports efforts to shift procurement from China, or provide additional time, despite efforts to procure products from alternative sources, availability of products outside China remains limited," the notice states.

The conclusion, though not yet fully clear from PC Mag's updated story, is that this federal trade notice is simply kicking the current can for a year. The tariffs in question had already been implemented, but so did the exemptions for valuable PC parts. The notice announces that, in effect, nothing has changed for 1 year.

What happens after that is anyone's guess. Tariffs can be dropped. Both tariffs and exemptions can be rolled over again. At that point, given that the price of PC parts suddenly jumps by 25% or that the cost of bill of materials tends to reach the final retail price, much could depend on the outcome of the coming election, perhaps without being political at all

in more circumstances. Trump has always been hawkish in China trade, and in fact the current tariff system began under his tenure. But similarly, the Biden administration has essentially adopted that tariff structure in wholesale.

To shorten the long story, we have to wait and see. But if Nvidia's Jen-Hsun Huang was giving pc gamers advice on import duties and buying PC components, they would probably know what he would say. The sooner you buy, the more you can save on tariffs. Maybe