Popular AI stock tanks after surprise tariff hit | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

AI’s future continues to impress, but its supply chain has hit a wall.

Tariffs, trade probes, and export bans have been racking up quickly, hitting chipmakers hard.

With levies on semiconductors and the potential for even more regulatory shocks, the cost of competing in AI has gone up immensely.

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Suddenly, what looked like a straight line to growth now feels more like a minefield.

One high-flying AI stock in particular just took a monumental hit, and it never saw it coming.

ASML stock took a sharp hit as tariff pressures raise questions about the global AI supply chain.

Image source&colon; Engelaar/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

Tariffs are turning up the heat on AI chipmakers

The U.S.-China tariff battle has evolved from being purely a political chess match. Recent months have shown that it has become a critical supply chain migraine for the world’s largest AI players.

Under Section 232 and 301 trade rules, Washington slapped 25% tariffs on chips and semiconductor tools.

Beijing responded with 34% duties on U.S. chip exports, resulting rising costs, splintered supply chains, and growing anxiety across the AI space.

The ripple effects are already painful.

Nvidia had to gulp down a $4.5 billion writedown on its China-bound H20 chips following an April export ban (the situation’s flipped on its head now). That’s far from being chump change, even for the hottest AI plays on the planet.

AMD is in a similar boat, filing for export licenses just to get its MI308 processors back into Chinese data centers.

Then there’s the equipment side for investors to deal with.

U.S. giants like Applied Materials and Lam Research are looking at north of $1 billion in annual hits from 25% tariffs on their chipmaking tools.

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That pressure doesn’t just eat into profits; it threatens to effectively slow R&D at a time when next-gen AI hardware is highly in demand.

Tariff jitters tank AI stock, despite solid Q2

ASML ( (ASML) ) may have delivered a solid quarter, but it fell short of stopping the bleeding after CEO Christophe Fouquet threw cold water on 2026 expectations.

ASML quietly became one of the go‑to names for investors looking for pure‑play AI exposure.

Its powerful ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines power the entire semiconductor value chain, etching complex patterns needed in developing advanced AI chips.

That said, shares in the Dutch semiconductor giant dropped nearly 9% after management pulled back on its growth forecast.

They cited “increasing uncertainty driven by macro-economic and geopolitical developments.”

Fouquet didn’t name-drop, but all signs point to President Donald Trump’s threatened 30% tariffs on EU imports, and the tension among Washington, Brussels, and Beijing.

That’s a major shift in tone from last November, when ASML called 2026 a massive growth year.

Now? “We cannot confirm it at this stage,” Fouquet said.

Q2 results, though, were mostly strong, with ASML posting €7.7 billion in net sales vs. €7.52 billion expected.

More impressively, it delivered €2.29 billion in profit vs. €2.04 billion guidance.

Nevertheless, the outlook for Q3 fell behind expectations, with a sales forecast between €7.4 billion and €7.9 billion, short of the €8.3 billion Street consensus.

To make things even worse, the company reduced its 2025 full-year net sales outlook, targeting 15% growth instead of an earlier €30 billion to €35 billion range.

So the broader concern now is tariffs.

ASML’s U.S. customers, including Intel and TSMC, are exposed to policy shifts, and any move from the White House could throw another wrench into the AI supply chain. With trade talks ongoing, investors will be watching every headline.

But for now, ASML’s guidance retreat has rattled even the bulls.