Trump floats tariffs up to 100 percent on Taiwanese chips

President Trump has threatened to slap tariffs up to 100 percent on semiconductors and other products, referencing Taiwan specifically. Semiconductor manufacturers “left us and they went to Taiwan, which is about 98 percent of the chip business, by the way. And we want them to come back and we won’t give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program that Biden has,” Trump said in a speech to Republicans.

Taiwan’s foremost chipmaker TSMC recently started production in a 12-billion-dollar fab in Arizona, with total US investment in upcoming years projected to be 65 billion dollars. The firm is weary of ramping up cutting-edge processes outside Taiwan, however. “The initial phase of the ramping up always comes from the fab close to R&D. So, in that sense, we want to ramp up the same kind of technology in the US, but that practically is a little bit difficult. So, Taiwan will always be first,” CEO CC Wei said in TSMC’s latest earnings call.

TSMC hasn’t publicly commented on Trump’s announcement. The Taiwanese economy ministry pointed out that “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries are highly complementary to each other,” creating “a win-win business model.”