By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor From Seeking Alpha

The latest U.S. tariffs on $200B worth of Chinese products spare many high-profile consumer technology items such as smart watches and speakers but not so the less flashy home modems, routers, and switching and networking gear that make them work.

The move effectively creates a two-tiered tariff structure for consumer internet, with products such as Apple’s watch (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Echo smart speaker and Fitbit’s (NYSE:FIT) fitness tracker favored over routers and internet gateways from Arris (NASDAQ:ARRS), Netgear (NASDAQ:NTGR), D-Link (OTC:DLINF) and others.

The basic gear that keep the internet functioning was not included in a newly created U.S. tariff code that was exempted from the latest China tariffs, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

The category saw $23B in U.S. imports from China last year, the largest component of Pres. Trump’s latest tariffs targeting Chinese goods.

For more on this story go to; https://seekingalpha.com/news/3392294-modems-routers-slammed-new-u-s-tariffs-smart-tech-goods-escape#email_link

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