Op-Ed: Trump’s tariff exemptions a wink towards crony capitalism?

By Emil Amok Guillermo

In our current trade war, Trump did more than blink.

This weekend – a day after China called Trump’s bluff and put tariffs at 125 percent on US goods, and Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent – the US announced it would exempt phones, laptops and other electronics coming in from China from any tariffs.

That’s a blink, right?

But It’s also a wink, an open invitation to everyone to come to the White House to make a deal. In a nation where the rule of law has traditionally prevailed, it leaves the uneasy feeling of where America is headed.

Under Trump’s authoritarian bent, the U.S. seems to have descended into the corruption of crony capitalism.

The new exemption spares companies, primarily Apple, with their Chinese-made products, from paying tariffs that could have resulted in $3,000 iPhones.

More broadly, it was an admission that tariffs are taxes that mean higher prices passed on to consumers.

While some tech companies are relieved, the exemptions don’t impact the existing 10 percent across-the-board tariffs, and the 25 percent tariffs on cars that Trump enacted last week.

So while we would like to forget this past week, it still must be recorded as a milestone in history.

Less than 80 days into its tenure, the Trump administration has defined itself and how it is taking the US downward.

With Trump driving the economic agenda, he’s put us in reverse, taking our 21st-century nation–that in January was considered the leader economically in the world–and driven us to the bottom.

Trump’s thrust us into a world of F.U.

Future uncertainty.

Who knows what he’ll do?

Did anyone predict the exemption on phones after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer declared under oath that exemptions were not part of the plan?

But, of course, they are.

And who knows how the financial markets will respond to exemptions that favor companies like Apple,  which has already said it would move some manufacturing back to the US.

After investors lost more than $6 trillion last week, how will the markets respond to the new exemption?

The exemption certainly wasn’t a correction of our current course, more a confirmation that tariffs will be painful as well as a carve out for Apple.

But now the message is out to everyone else who wants to cut a deal. Not just countries, but companies can come asking for an exemption.

This is Trump acting on, as he put it, “instinct.”

Unfortunately, it also highlights the Trumpian instinct toward corruption.

In the first term, people spent money at the Trump hotel as they sought favors from Trump.

In this second term, all those who seek favors can already buy Trump meme coins, directly benefiting Trump. There’s also a sense that cutting the government is intended to create space for private companies to fill in.  Last week, a plan was revealed how Trump would like to sell federal buildings to the highest bidder—in order to rent it back to the government?

And need we mention the world’s richest man, who, as the leader of DOGE, is cutting government while also holding billions of dollars in federal contracts and ties to China? Is an exemption coming?

And if it’s not, just remember Musk is Trump’s campaign ATM machine, giving $288 million in 2024 and reportedly another $100 million in 2025.

Filipino Americans who escaped the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines and immigrated to the U.S. know of the type of economy that results from crony capitalism.

It’s hard to imagine that under Trump, the U.S. is more like the Philippines under Marcos than we ever thought imaginable.

But the new exemptions are a wink. America is open to corruption.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. His weekly column on Asian American issues has run since 1995. See his “Emil Amok’s Takeout–What Does An Asian American Think?” on YouTube.com/@emilamok1