A lot of the major tech companies made handsome donations to President Trump’s inaugural fund back in January. This is because the president has been vowing to slap tariffs across multiple industries and foreign companies in particular are under his crosshairs. As such Samsung is reportedly looking to hire a new head of public affairs.
The current person that heads Samsung’s relations with North America is Mark Lippert. Lippert was the U.S. ambassador to South Korea during the Obama administration and was hired by Samsung in 2022. Now, only two years later, Lippert is to resign as Samsung looks for a new head of public affairs that has ties to the Trump administration.
This is hardly surprising. Alongside tariffs the current president poses other risks to companies like Samsung. Apple is already trying to employ the same tactics as it did during the first Trump term. CEO Tim Cook has conducted multiple meetings with Trump, presumably to try to get Apple exempted from tariffs and other nuisances.
The U.S. is a major market for Samsung and if the company isn’t able to navigate the current political climate it will find itself at a severe disadvantage. It has a head start over Apple because it doesn’t manufacture anything in China anymore: the region Trump is most interested in reducing dependency on.
Future Samsung Galaxy phones may become more expensive due to tariffs. | Image credit — PhoneArena
A head of public affairs who is on good terms with the current administration will be a massive boon to Samsung. Tim Cook will undoubtedly tell Trump that slapping tariffs on Apple will give foreign companies like Samsung an advantage. Samsung needs to get through these political landmines very carefully if it doesn’t want to lose a significant chunk of the American market share.
The smartphone industry is a complex system of dozens of systems working in harmony across the globe. Current actions have not only threatened but already disrupted these systems and companies are now shifting manufacturing to the U.S. to compensate.
Tariffs may eventually end up achieving Trump’s desired result but the period in between will be painful for companies like Samsung. It and other foreign companies will have to pull every trick in the book to make sure that they don’t face unfathomable losses in the coming years.
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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.
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