Shares of Apple Inc. rose as much as 5.2% this morning and Best Buy Co. Inc. briefly jumped more than 8% after the Trump administration announced it will delay tariffs on certain Chinese imports.

The affected items include smartphones, laptops, video game consoles, computer displays and a number of other products such as toys. These products are among the roughly $300 billion worth of goods on which the U.S. had planned to impose a 10% levy at the start of September. Tariffs on affected items will be pushed back until Dec. 15, while some goods will be taken off the list altogether. 

“Certain products are being removed from the tariff list based on health, safety, national security and other factors,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement. The agency didn’t specify exactly what items will be excluded but announced plans to release more detailed information later today.

Even without factoring in the products that the USTR will take off the list, the delay of the duties amounts to a significant reprieve for consumer tech giants such as Apple. Smartphones alone accounted for $80 billion of the $300 billion in merchandise that was set to be hit with the 10% levy.

In June, Apple sent a letter to the USTR requesting a tariff waiver for the iPhone as well as other core products including the iPad and Mac. Last year, the Mac mini, Apple Watch and AirPods were spared from a separate 10% U.S. levy on Chinese imports after officials decided to exclude a number of electronics categories.

President Donald Trump said today that he is delaying additional tariffs on items such as smartphones in a bid to stem the impact on consumers during the holiday shopping season. Apple and Best Buy aren’t the only companies that saw their shares rise on the news. A number of upstream suppliers to the electronics industry, most notably chipmakers, made gains as well: Bloomberg reported that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index climbed as much as 2.6%.

The U.S.-China trade dispute has led some tech companies to consider restructuring their global supply chains. Last month, the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Dell Technologies Inc. and HP Inc. are looking to move as much as a third of their laptop production out of China. Apple, Google LLC Amazon.com Inc. are said to be mulling similar steps in a bid to mitigate the impact of tariffs on their customers.

Photo: Michael Vadon/Flickr