Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Juniper Networks made a last-minute appeal to the Trump administration to request that key products not be included in the list of tariffs on 200 billion US dollars' worth of Chinese exports to the United States. The current US business community is increasingly anxious about the escalation of the China-US trade war.

These four tech firms pointed out in a letter to the US Trade Representative (USTR) that adding tariffs on network equipment will increase the price paid by consumers and cause a delay in investment, which may lead to job losses for workers and diminishing dividends to shareholders.

"If USTR were to impose a 10-25 percent additional duty on networking products and accessories, it would cause broad, disproportionate economic harm to US interests, including our companies and US workers, our customers, US consumers and broader US economic and strategic priorities,” wrote their letter to the USTR Robert Lighthizer on Thursday.

Despite concerns over the impact of the Trump administration's trade policy on their own businesses, few leaders of large US companies have so far expressed their opposition directly and openly.

But Cisco and its partners feel the need to talk about the dangers that tariffs pose to their businesses in that this wave of tariff list targets many components and finished products critical to cloud data centers, and these centers are at the heart of today's digital infrastructure.