The Supreme Court’s February ruling on presidential tariff authority drew a lot of headlines, most of them focused on what it took away. IEEPA-based global tariffs, the broad emergency-powers tool that the Trump administration used to impose country-wide duties on a sweeping range of trading partners, did not survive judicial review. The Court concluded that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act cannot serve as a catch-all legal basis for that kind of trade policy.
What the ruling left standing, though, is the part that matters most for displays: the Section 301 tariffs on China.
That distinction is not a legal technicality. Section 301 duties were imposed through a different statutory process, anchored in the USTR’s formal finding that Chinese trade practices were unreasonable and discriminatory. They were never at issue in this case, and they remain fully in force. Trade-law analysts have been blunt about what this means in practice: the ruling does little to reduce tariffs on China. It simply channels future policy action into a tested statutory framework that can be tuned at the product-code level rather than invoked as an emergency.
For the display industry, the difference between hoping tariffs unwind and planning around them as a durable cost structure has now been resolved by the highest court in the country. Section 301 is the floor. The industry should build its models accordingly.
Section 301 is technology-agnostic as a statute, but the product lists it created are not. Displays, subassemblies, and related electronics are deeply embedded. HTS code 8531.20.00, covering indicator panels with LCD and LED, sits on a representative Section 301 list alongside a broad range of machinery and electrical goods, meaning flat-panel modules and display subsystems were swept into the China tariff net early in the process.
The real-world impact on landed costs is meaningful. Depending on classification and product category, the effective tariff increase on China-origin displays and components ranges from roughly 10 percentage points on LCD panels to 15 percentage points on OLED, with some Mini and MicroLED-related components approaching 30% depending on how they are classified. Most displays enter the U.S. inside finished TVs, monitors, notebooks, or signage systems, so the practical impact is felt at the set level rather than as a neatly itemized panel surcharge. From a P&L perspective, it is the same thing: China-origin display content carries a structural duty uplift against non-China alternatives.
China’s Ministry of Commerce has described its posture since the ruling as a “comprehensive evaluation” and has urged Washington to cancel unilateral tariffs on its trading partners. The ministry has also signaled clearly that it sees the U.S. preparing to maintain tariffs through alternative means including trade investigations, and has pledged to protect its interests.
That language is worth parsing. It implies two things simultaneously: China does not expect a negotiated tariff rollback in the near term, and targeted reciprocal responses on finished sets, components, or upstream materials remain available if Washington escalates further. For panel makers, OEMs, and integrators, that framing converts tariff risk into a structural geopolitical variable rather than just an economic one. The risk doesn’t expire at the end of a political cycle.
How This Reshapes the Price Stack
The ruling doesn’t add new tariffs. What it does is lock in the ones that matter for China-origin hardware, and that still reshapes price and demand trajectories in ways the industry needs to absorb.
Scenario modeling from Omdia illustrates the mechanics clearly. When tariffs apply to China but not Mexico, TV production for the U.S. market clusters in Mexico, with Chinese and Korean brands using Mexican plants to avoid direct China penalties while still tapping Chinese panels and components. If tariffs expand to cover Mexico as well, production migrates again to Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa, bringing higher supply-chain costs, longer lead times, and meaningful downward pressure on U.S. TV demand as price increases pass through to retailers and consumers.
For monitors and notebooks, the same analysis flags demand normalization or outright declines in the U.S. once inventory overhang clears and buyers start to feel the full cost step.
Layer that onto current panel-price dynamics, with TV and monitor panels rising into early 2026 while notebook panels slip, and Section 301 functions as a quiet but firm floor under U.S. retail pricing versus ex-U.S. markets. It doesn’t stop cycles, but it shifts the entire price band upward for China-dependent SKUs and creates a persistent wedge between what U.S. buyers pay and what the rest of the world pays for the same display technology.
If Section 301 tariffs are durable and China-specific, geographic routing becomes a first-order strategic variable rather than a tactical workaround. Omdia’s tariff scenario work maps out what that looks like in practice.
In a world where China faces tariffs but Mexico does not, TV production for the U.S. market stabilizes in Mexico. Chinese and Korean brands build in Mexico or use existing Mexican capacity to avoid direct China exposure while maintaining access to Chinese glass and components. If tariffs subsequently expand to Mexico and China simultaneously, production routes again to Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt, and Poland, with factory closures in Mexico and a second wave of supply-chain restructuring costs.
The recommendation for monitors and notebooks is more direct: relocate production from China to Southeast Asia as soon as possible to mitigate tariff exposure, even at the cost of higher short-term transition overhead. The cost of moving now is less than the cost of moving under pressure later.
What this means for the panel ecosystem is that Chinese makers, BOE, CSOT, HKC, and Tianma, remain the primary suppliers of glass and modules but increasingly feed non-China assembly nodes for U.S.-bound products. Korean and Taiwanese makers gain relative attractiveness when their panels can be mated to non-China assembly and avoid the highest-rate 301 lines. And U.S.-bound capacity planning now has to model tariff status of both panel origin and final assembly geography as a first-order input, not a sensitivity case.
Where China, Korea, and U.S. Brands Land
China’s position is complicated by the tariff structure in specific ways. It still dominates LCD capacity and is ramping OLED and MicroLED aggressively, but Section 301 pushes Chinese strategy in three directions: expanding domestic demand and non-U.S. export markets, building assembly capacity offshore, and climbing the technology ladder fast enough to defend margin even when tariff-penalized. Chinese industry commentary has been candid that tariffs restrict the export of China’s display industry to the U.S. and may force price-cutting strategies if duties were ever extended from finished sets directly to Chinese-made TV and monitor panels, compressing margins and slowing the transition to larger sizes in the U.S. market.
Korea’s position is actually improved, at least at the high end. Samsung Display exited commoditized LCD years ago. LG Display has shut its large-size LCD TV production lines, retaining some IT LCD capacity. What remains is roughly 92% of the area shipped in OLED panels at or above nine inches and 100% of TV-class OLED production, with 2025 TV OLED revenue split approximately 81% LG Display to 19% Samsung Display. In a world where tariffs make low-margin China LCD less attractive into the U.S., that premium positioning plays well, particularly when the sets using those panels are assembled in tariff-favored locations.
For U.S. brands and integrators, the practical response has already started taking shape. Omdia’s tariff scenario work flags a “No China, No Taiwan” policy emerging for sensitive applications in military and aerospace procurement, forcing top brands to reevaluate supply chains around high-risk categories beyond Section 301 lists. For mainstream TVs, monitors, notebooks, and signage, the operational logic is dual-sourcing: qualify Chinese and non-Chinese panels, Chinese and non-Chinese assembly, and be ready to shift volume quickly as tariff schedules evolve. ProAV and digital signage commentary from ISE 2026 already reflected this, with tariff uncertainty cited as a driver of price hikes, delayed projects, and a strategic tilt toward software-heavy solutions and Mexico-based manufacturing to soften hardware cost exposure.
Technology Roadmaps Absorb the Bias
Tariffs don’t dictate whether the industry migrates to OLED or MicroLED. But they do tilt the playing field in quiet ways over the long term.
Omdia’s current MicroLED outlook puts revenue at around $105 million in 2026 with growth toward $6.8 billion by 2032, with early revenue concentrated in near-eye displays, watches, and public signage installations. Those categories are high-margin, low-volume, and relatively price-inelastic, meaning they can absorb tariff-based cost friction if production remains concentrated in China. Mainstream TV and PC displays are different. They are volume-driven and price-elastic, and if direct tariffs were ever extended from finished sets to Chinese-made TV and monitor panels themselves, the most likely response from Chinese makers would be aggressive price-cutting to hold share, compressing margins and slowing the migration to larger sizes in the U.S. The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t do that, but by hardening Section 301 it keeps that option available to future U.S. policymakers.
For IT and near-eye displays, the sourcing calculus now has to account for end-market sensitivity. A microdisplay fab in China feeding U.S. defense or aerospace programs under an NCNT policy is a fundamentally different risk profile from one feeding consumer AR glasses assembled in Vietnam or Mexico. Both may use Chinese glass. Only one has a viable path to a U.S. customer.
The net structural effect is a set of quiet biases: toward more geographic diversification of assembly capacity, toward premium-tilted product strategies in tariff-exposed markets, and toward more conservative scenario-based capex planning for any new China-based display line that expects to sell into the U.S.
