Home devices hit by tariffs, US consumers will bear the costs

US tariffs that hit some $200 billion worth of Chinese products on Monday spared many high-profile consumer technology items such as smart watches and speakers, but home modems, routers and internet gateways that make them work weren’t so lucky.

Consumer technology industry officials and the US Customs and Border Protection agency said they expect billions of dollars worth of these products, including those designed for home use, will be subject to the 10 percent tariffs activated on Monday.

The move will effectively create a twotiered tariff structure for consumer internet, with many products, such as Fitbit fitness trackers, Apple Inc’s watch and Amazon.com Inc’s Echo smart speaker being favored over routers and internet gateways from Arris International,

Netgear, D-Link and others.

“We’re operating under the assumption that the tens of millions of devices that deliver high-speed internet into consumers’ homes will be impacted by these tariffs,” said f supr

Brennan, Arris’ senior vice president of ply chain, quality and operations.

“It feels anti-consumer because our deumer vices are what enables the core of consu tech,” Brennan told Reuters.

The modems, routers, switching and d netctiond working gear that keep the internet function ing were not included in a newly created US tariff code that was exempted from the latest China tariffs, a spokesperson for the US Cus toms and Border Protection agency said.

The agency has made no distinction be tween consumer-use modems and routers and the commercial network equipment used

by data centers and broadband internet providers.

Most new internet-connected devices had been lumped into a broad category in the US Harmonized Tariff Schedule, 85176200, “Machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data, including switching and routing apparatus.”

The catch-all category saw $23 billion in US imports from China and $47.6 billion from the world last year.

The US Consumer Technology Association said that consumers will bear the costs of the tariffs, even if their service provider buys the modems, as access to the internet and mobile plans will get more expensive.