The US has imposed a 25 percent tariff on imports of certain advanced semiconductors, a key step in an agreement blessed by US President Donald Trump allowing Nvidia Corp to ship Taiwan-made H200 artificial intelligence (AI) processors to China.
Under an order Trump signed on Wednesday, the US government would collect the duty on the chips as they are shipped to the US before final shipment to Chinese customers and other foreign markets.
Nvidia relies on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to produce the chips it designs, including the H200 that was cleared for sale to China by Trump last month.
Photo: AFP
“It’s not the highest level, but it’s a very good level, and China wants them, and other people want them, and we’re going to be making 25 percent of the sale of those chips, basically,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday at a signing ceremony.
The US president is holding off for now on applying tariffs to a broader swath of foreign-made chips, following an investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act that found they harm US national security.
Instead, Trump directed US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to “pursue negotiation of agreements” on imports and to report back in 90 days, according to the proclamation he signed.
Trump might announce new tariffs and an accompanying offset program to incentivize domestic manufacturing “in the near future,” a White House fact sheet said.
The 25 percent tariff applies to “a very narrow category of semiconductors that are an important element of my administration’s AI and technology policies,” the proclamation said.
That includes the H200 and Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s MI325X, according to the fact sheet.
There is an exception for those chips that are imported to support the build-out of the US technology supply chain, it said.
Trump signed the measure a day after the US Bureau of Industry and Security eased its criteria for securing licenses to export H200 chips to China.
That surcharge is a condition Trump required in exchange for allowing Nvidia to sell in China. The US must still take additional actions before Nvidia can send the chips to China, including the approval of export licenses by the bureau. That process can take weeks or months and it is unclear when it would conclude.
Taiwanese products have generally faced a 20 percent tariff upon entering the US, although semiconductors have been spared as US Department of Commerce officials conduct a national security investigation into whether new levies should be applied across the chip sector. Trump has yet to follow on imposing tariffs, as negotiations with Taiwan and major technology companies continue.
Top Taiwanese officials on Wednesday traveled to Washington for talks on finalizing a deal to lower its overall tariff rate to 15 percent and expand TSMC production facilities in the US, people familiar with the matter said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
RSS