What Changed Since the 2018–2022 Tariff Wars
Broad tariffs on consumer goods have largely stabilized, but strategic controls on high-technology inputs expanded. The 2025 landscape is dominated by advanced lithography access rules, AI accelerator thresholds, and inbound/outbound investment screening—each adding friction equivalent to a tariff, but with far more supply-chain specificity.
Invisible Tariffs: Controls, Lists, and Licenses
Entity lists, end-use restrictions, and complex licensing are now the binding constraint. For executives, these are not "legal footnotes"—they are cost drivers and lead-time risks that determine factory location, vendor selection, and buffer stock.
Signal in the 2025 Data
- High-tech US–China component trade shows pressure, while flows to Vietnam, Mexico, and India rise.
- OEMs redesign BOMs to use controllable subcomponents, reducing export-control exposure.
- Multi-sourcing for AI/ML compute and battery cells replaces single-region dependencies.
Case Study: A Tier-1 Electronics Supplier (2024–2025)
A global Tier-1 split assembly across Malaysia and Mexico, shifted tooling to avoid restricted subassemblies, and centralized licensing expertise. Result: more resilient lead times and improved customer delivery SLAs under the new rules.
Executive Playbook
- Map export-control exposure for each SKU and vendor tier.
- Stand up an internal licensing desk with quarterly drills.
- Use near-shore capacity for buffer and surge production.
- Align finance with compliance to price risk into contracts.
Remova helps manufacturers and technology firms reduce competitive exposure by minimizing public trade-data signals and hardening supply chain privacy. Explore our Protection Plans to safeguard customer lists, supplier maps, and shipment metadata while you re-architect for 2025.
The Bottom Line
The future of global trade is technological sovereignty. Treat export controls and licensing as first-order strategy inputs—on par with cost, quality, and delivery.