Taiwan only expects a small impact from any tariffs imposed by the incoming government of US president-elect Donald Trump on semiconductor exports given their technological superiority, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today.
Home to the world's largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple and Nvidia.
However, Taiwanese policymakers have warned new US tariffs against all countries from the incoming Trump administration could curb economic growth this year for the export-dependent economy.
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
Trump has pledged a blanket tariff of 10 percent on global imports into the US and a far higher 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods. In late November last year, he specifically pledged a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Asked at a news conference about the impact on Taiwan's export orders of Trump's tariffs, Kuo said it would not much affect the chip sector.
"For our semiconductors and advanced processes, there is an advantage of technological leadership and that cannot be replaced, and so the impact will be small," he added.
Taiwan will also help companies relocate supply chains to the US as needed, away from where there might be high import tariffs, Kuo said.
"Now we see that we should be able to develop the aerospace supply chain industry in the US, and do some joining up with the US aerospace companies, so that some of Taiwan's aerospace research and development centers can be moved to there."
Taiwan will also set up an office in Japan in the first half of this year to help Taiwanese businesses invest there, and cooperate with the country on artificial intelligence and drones, he added.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
RSS