Newly announced U.S.-China tariff agreement isn’t long enough to benefit gamers
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The United States and China have finally reached a new agreement in the ongoing tariff dispute, but only for a limited time. A new White House briefing confirms massively decreased tariff rates to commence from May 14th, 2025. This comes following the news that companies such as Nvidia are shifting to more U.S.-based production, causing a GPU price rise.
According to the U.S.-China joint statement, the new ruling removes the prior tariff rates imposed in April and will be in effect “for an initial period of 90 days,” and will see the rates lowered by more than 100% in both directions. Discussions regarding the trade war will continue, and it’s safe to say that 90 days isn’t a very long time.
Reciprocal tariffs paused, rates down by 115%
Putting all of the technical talk aside, user @Jukanlosreve on X highlights two main takeaways from the White House statement. Tariffs on Chinese products entering the U.S. have been drastically reduced from 145% to 30%. In the other direction, U.S.-to-China product tariffs have been lowered from 125% to just 10%.
Despite this massive drop, uncertainty will likely prove to be an issue for manufacturers. On top of that, 90 days is not much time to work with in the grand scheme of things. Companies have already been raising their prices. We’ve seen this with both PlayStation and Xbox, as well as Nintendo raising game prices. Luckily, the Switch 2 console itself dodged the added costs. For PC gamers, the increasing price of GPUs in the U.S. comes despite both Nvidia and AMD focusing more on U.S.-based production.
The temporary relief might not be enough to make a world of difference for PC gamers in the States. On the bright side, those in Europe are starting to enjoy fairer GPU prices. For example, the RTX 5070 has been on sale for less than MSRP in France, and Nvidia’s flagship RTX 5090 is also getting close to MSRP.
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