US President Joe Biden’s administration has added 37 companies from China’s mining, solar and textile sectors to its list of those banned from exporting to the US due to alleged forced labor practices in the Xinjiang region.
The firms include mining giant Zijin Mining Group (紫金礦業) and solar companies such as a subsidiary of JA Solar Technology Co (晶澳太陽能科技), a statement from the US Department of Homeland Security said.
The list also includes textile manufacturer Huafu Fashion Co (華孚時尚) and 25 of its subsidiaries.
Photo: AP
US and European companies have been under pressure to pull away from factories that make clothes and other products in the Xinjiang region. Labor groups have documented alleged forced labor camps and other poor working conditions involving the local Uighur population. China disputes these claims.
The additions represent the largest single expansion of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act list since the law was passed in 2021, and bring the total number of companies banned to 144, the statement said.
Major Chinese solar companies have already started switching to more expensive polysilicon from Western countries to eliminate risks linked to the law and import ban. As for JA Solar, the impact of its addition to the US list is expected to be limited as the subsidiary closed last year and did not supply directly or indirectly to the US, a note by BofA Global Research said.
“That said, this serves another reminder that Chinese solar will face rising trade headwinds especially in the US,” BofA Global said.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS