The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.”
“It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
“They 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 don’t want to give them billions of dollars, like this ridiculous program [the US CHIPS and Science Act] that [former US president Joe] Biden has,” Trump said.
In Taiwan, many people voiced concerns that the nation would be severely damaged if the US imposed a high tariff on Taiwan-made chips.
“In response to rapid changes in situations at home and overseas, Taiwan needs to continue pursuing opportunities for more partnerships in the international community and maintaining our competitive edge,” Cho said yesterday when asked to comment. “At home, the government and the private sector need to form a united front. Just like chopsticks, which are not easily broken if you tie them together. This is a great opportunity for Taiwan.”
“The Ministry of Economic Affairs and other government agencies are closely monitoring what happened overseas in the past few days. We would start looking at possible ways of assisting the semiconductor industry and having more collaborative projects with it in a couple of days,” he said.
“However, we want to assure people that the international community cannot afford to ignore Taiwan’s role in the global supply chain. We will continue to maintain that advantage,” he added.
Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said that Taiwan and the US have been collaborating in semiconductor and other high-tech projects, and have built a relationship based on trust over the years.
“We will continue to focus on the latest development of the policy [on semiconductors] in the US, and maintain a close contact and partnership with the US government,” she said. “Taiwan-US relations should be bolstered by building upon existing foundations, and Taiwan and the US should jointly counter global challenges to contribute to a stable development of the industry and national interests in both countries.”
In 2020, during the first Trump administration, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — the world’s largest contract chipmaker — announced that it would build a US$2 billion factory in Arizona to help the US government wrestle global tech supply chains back from China. It later boosted those plans with a total investment of US$65 billion.
TSMC has declined to comment on Trump’s latest tariff remarks.
In another potential challenge for Taiwan, Trump last week directed federal agencies to investigate persistent US trade deficits, unfair trade practices and alleged currency manipulation by other countries.
Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US surged 83 percent last year compared with 2023, with exports to the US hitting a record US$111.4 billion, driven by demand for high-tech products such as semiconductors.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan and Reuters
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.