New Delhi, April 14 -- In the latest tariff war twist, the US exempted several products, including smartphones and computers, from its reciprocal levies. Among Big Tech beneficiaries in America, it comes as terra-byte-sized relief for Apple, which had a carve-out even from the trade war with China during Donald Trump's first term as US president; iPhones shipped to America from China would seem to have a charmed existence.

The fortunes of a big US business would've got clobbered this time too, had a 145% tariff on shipments from China been applied to every item, as investors expected till that news broke. Social-media memes on sky-high iPhone price tags had spread too, as if to exemplify what US consumers were in for.

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