Bloomberg: AI Data-Center Imports Sidestep Trump's Tariff Wall

For most of the past year the story around Trump's tariff push has been how much it stings importers. The quieter story, which Bloomberg's New Economy newsletter laid out on August 8, is that the AI buildout has largely been routed around it. Deep-pocketed tech firms racing to build data centers have, per Bloomberg, effectively gotten a pass from Trump's protectionism.

The mechanics are worth being specific about. A mid-2025 White House decision exempted the key data-center imports from the global tariff regime, and in April 2026 the administration amended the Section 232 metal tariffs to explicitly exclude GPU boards, accelerator cards and server racks from derivative product coverage. That is not a small carve-out. CSIS reports that servers account for roughly 72% of the value of GPU imports in 2025, and that Taiwan alone exported about $86 billion of servers that year, with Mexico another $80 billion. The World Trade Organization has estimated that 70 to 90% of the value of US AI investment is imported. That is a large slice of capex flowing across the border at close to zero duty.

Where the tariff exposure has actually landed is the boring half of the buildout, the power and cooling gear. Transformers, switchgear, UPS and cooling ride under Chapter 84 and 85, enter at near-zero base rates, and then stack Section 232 duties (25% on steel and aluminum derivatives, doubled to 50% in April 2025) and Section 301 (an extra 25% on China origin). A single transformer, according to a GingerControl analysis of the current rate stack, can end up carrying roughly 50% total duty. That sits on top of lead times reported at around 128 weeks for standard transformers, up to four years for the large ones, with medium-voltage switchgear effectively sold out through 2028.

The honest caveat is that the Bloomberg piece is a newsletter framing rather than a policy filing. It does not spell out how durable the GPU exemption really is, how it interacts with the pending Section 232 semiconductor investigation, or what share of the tariffed power and cooling gear actually comes from China. Take the specifics as reported, not settled.

The forward-looking read is that if you run infrastructure, the pressure point has moved. GPUs are effectively a tariff-free global commodity for now. The choke points that will decide 2027 build schedules are transformers, switchgear and cooling, and the vendors that can supply them domestically, not the ones assembling the racks in Taiwan.