Trump tariffs reportedly spark display panel stockpiling from monitor manufacturers
Trying to duck China-focused tariff costs

Monitor makers are allegedly stockpiling display panels in response to tariffs imposed on China by the Trump administration. DigiTimes Asia reports that screen stockpiling volume is expected to reach 3 million units, with monitor prices allegedly increasing by 5% due to tariffs.
The implication of the new tariffs could cause a chain reaction in the monitor panel industry, on top of just stockpiling. Heavy competition in the industry is expected to choke second-tier monitor brands (think those without a long history in or close ties to the display business), hampering their negotiating power, and forcing these lower-tier brands to pay higher prices to ensure they get enough product capacity for their products.
"First-tier" brands, by comparison, will be less affected, having more room to compensate for the new tariffs with their reportedly better capacity and selection capabilities.
Panel demand is reportedly increasing progressively in the first quarter of 2025, as the biggest players in the display market such as Dell, HP, and Samsung build their inventory to combat tariff pricing. This initial wave in demand seemingly began in late 2024, and has led to slight price increases for some monitor panels already.
Displays are far from the only part of the tech industry feeling the impact. ASRock is planning to move production outside of China due to the same Trump-imposed tariffs. And it doesn't seem to be planning a move to the U.S., but rather Vietnam and Taiwan, countries where tariffs have yet to be applied.
Even though Tariffs have not yet been applied to those nations, Trump has threatened Taiwan with up to 100% tariffs on semiconductor chips. The U.S. president's stated aim is to bring back semiconductor manufacturing jobs to the U.S., many of which have shifted to Taiwan.
Newegg also blamed tariffs (before deleting its Tweets) for the frustrating limited availability and price issues plaguing the new RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards. They company's social media pointed to tariffs in addition to scalpers as being responsible for hiking prices by 18% on Nvidia's flagship GPUs. MediaTek is also conducting impact simulations to see how U.S. tariffs might impact its business operations.
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
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Jabberwocky79 Well this is all just rather stupid. Glad I built my new system in September. But it looks like I'm going to spend on a GPU whatever I managed to save on the rest of the components.Reply -
pug_s Jabberwocky79 said:Well this is all just rather stupid. Glad I built my new system in September. But it looks like I'm going to spend on a GPU whatever I managed to save on the rest of the components.
I don't think it is stupid consider price of monitors won't go down in the next few months. For me, I brought a laptop because price of this stuff go up in price. -
bigdragon Smart. I also moved up my plans to acquire supplies for future projects. The tariffs did all sorts of crazy things to the price and availability of lumber and electronics the last time they went into effect. There's no point in being caught by surprise this time when you know what's coming.Reply