US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would be announcing the tariff rate on imported semiconductors over the next week, which means the earlier exclusion of smartphones and computers from his reciprocal tariffs on China will be short-lived.

“We wanted to uncomplicate it from a lot of other companies, because we want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he travelled back to Washington from his estate in West Palm Beach.

Trump declined to say whether some products such as smartphones might still end up being exempted, but added: “You have to show a certain flexibility. Nobody should be so rigid.”

Earlier in the day, Trump announced a national security trade probe into the semiconductor sector. “We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations,” he posted.

The White House had announced the exclusions from steep reciprocal tariffs on Friday, creating some hope that the tech industry might escape being ensnared in the escalating conflict between the two nations and that everyday consumer products such as phones and laptops would remain affordable.

However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, earlier on Sunday made clear that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.

Lutnick said Trump would enact “a special focus-type of tariff” on smartphones, computers and other electronics products in a month or two, alongside sectoral tariffs targeting semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. The new duties would fall outside Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, under which levies on Chinese imports climbed to 125 per cent last week, he said.

Beijing increased its own tariffs on U.S. imports to 125 per cent on Friday in response. On Sunday, before Lutnick’s comments, China said it was evaluating the impact of the exclusions for the technology products implemented late on Friday.

“The bell on a tiger’s neck can only be untied by the person who tied it,” China’s ministry of commerce said.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump’s run for President but has criticised the tariffs, on Sunday called on him to pause the broad and steep reciprocal tariffs on China for three months as Trump did for most countries last week.

If Trump paused Chinese tariffs for 90 days and cut them to 10 per cent temporarily, “he would achieve the same objective in causing US businesses to relocate their supply chains from China without the disruption and risk”, Ackman wrote on X.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, criticised the latest revision to Trump’s tariff plan, which economists have warned could dent economic growth and fuel inflation.

“There is no tariff policy — only chaos and corruption,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week”.