Mike Smith
9 days ago
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Large US mining companies paid unprecedented sums for urgent delivery of equipment from Southeast Asia on the eve of the introduction of new trade restrictions. According to the publication Blockspace, the operators rented charter flights at prices from $2 to $3.5 million, which was 2-4 times higher than the standard rates for such transportations.
The reason for such a rush was the increase in import duties for US trading partners announced by President Donald Trump on 2 April. On 5 April, a base rate of 10% for all countries became effective, while differentiated ‘reciprocal tariffs’ for individual states came into effect on 9 April.
The most significant increases affected the key production hubs of mining equipment: Malaysia (24%), Thailand (36%), Indonesia (32%) and Taiwan (32%). The tariff on China rose particularly sharply, to 104 per cent.
It is in the first three jurisdictions where the main assembly plants of the leading ASIC-miner manufacturers - Bitmain, MicroBT, Canaan, Bitdeer and Auradine - are located. Taiwanese company TSMC, which supplies most of the semiconductor chips for this equipment, has so far avoided the increase in duties - semiconductors are temporarily excluded from the list of taxable goods.
Information about the sharp increase in logistics activity was confirmed by industry experts - Synteq Digital's CEO and Luxor's COO. According to them, production lines were working around the clock to fulfil as many orders as possible before the restrictions came into force.
While some companies have already started localising assembly in the US (MicroBT in 2023 and Bitmain in January 2025), the capacity of these facilities so far covers only a fraction of market demand for hardware.
The introduction of new duties exacerbates price pressure on the mining industry at a time when many market participants are preparing for the upcoming Bitcoin halving and corresponding technical fleet upgrades.
