US-China Tariffs Push PCB Buyers Toward ‘China Plus One’ Sourcing

Washington and Beijing’s on-again, off-again tariff regime is forcing electronics OEMs to rewrite PCB sourcing playbooks in 2025. Section 301 duties of up to 25% still apply to many Chinese-made boards, and threatened levies on semiconductors keep the risk alive. In response, buyers are re-qualifying suppliers across Southeast Asia and the US to hedge both cost and supply exposure.

The pressure is not new — Chinese PCBs have carried Section 301 tariffs since 2018 — but the past year’s escalation-and-retreat cycle has made planning far harder. Rates on hundreds of electronics lines swung sharply before a mid-2025 truce trimmed some reciprocal tariffs, while a Section 232 probe into semiconductors keeps future levies on the table. Because duties are assessed on declared customs value, tariff stacking can add double-digit percentages to landed cost for bare boards and PCBA alike. Procurement teams now run total-landed-cost models, audit HTS classifications, and press suppliers for non-China finishing or kitting locations before committing volume.

Suppliers are moving as fast as buyers. Leading Chinese PCB manufacturers have opened plants in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia to defend Western accounts, and US fabricators report rising quote activity for industrial and defense-adjacent work as reshoring incentives tighten domestic-content expectations. Yet China still produces more than half of the world’s PCBs and holds deep concentration in high-layer-count and HDI capacity, so a full exit is neither quick nor cheap. The emerging playbook among sourcing heads is dual qualification: a Chinese line for cost, a non-China line for tariff exposure, with safety stock covering requalification windows of three to six months.

LT CIRCUIT tracks tariff developments closely and helps OEM buyers structure sourcing that balances cost and compliance across HDI, high-layer-count, rigid-flex and ceramic PCB programs. Engineering-led qualification support shortens dual-sourcing transitions without compromising signal integrity or delivery schedules.