US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) could invest US$300 billion in Arizona, which would be nearly double the total investment TSMC has announced to date in the US.
“We have the biggest [chipmaker] in the world [TSMC] from Taiwan is coming over and spending 300 billion dollars in Arizona building the biggest plant in the world for chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in an interview on CNBC’s financial talk show Squawk Box.
Trump said that new tariffs on semiconductors and chips would be unveiled “within the next week or so” — calling them a “separate category,” because the US wants those products made domestically.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
TSMC, which in March announced it would expand its investment in the US to US$165 billion over several years, declined to respond to media inquiries about Trump’s remarks, saying that any comments would be made through official company statements.
TSMC’s original US$65 billion investment in the US was to build three chip fabrication plants, while the additional US$100 billion investment would be put into three new fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research-and-development center, the company said at the time.
TF International Securities Group Co (天風國際證券) analyst Kuo Ming-chi (郭明錤) cast doubt on Trump’s numbers.
“TSMC’s officially announced investment is US$165 billion, while Trump previously stated US$200 billion. His further escalation to US$300 billion seems to be laying the groundwork for upcoming semiconductor tariffs, consistent with his stated approach of ‘starting with an extremely high number, then negotiating down,’” Kuo wrote on social media.
Regarding rumors that TSMC is being pressured to take a 49 percent stake in Intel Corp or invest an additional US$400 billion in the US as part of Taiwan-US trade negotiations, Kuo said his understanding is that the talks have not involved TSMC.
“If the aforementioned market rumors were true, TSMC would need to invest a total of US$565 billion in the US, far exceeding Trump’s stated US$300 billion, indicating these market rumors are unfounded,” he added.
TSMC shares fell 2.17 percent in Taipei trading after its American depositary receipts dropped 2.73 percent overnight. The contract chipmaker’s decline weighed heavily on the local main board, with the TAIEX closing down 213.23 points, or 0.90 percent, at 23,447.36.
“Trump’s remark renewed fears over tariffs on semiconductors, which are a backbone of Taiwan’s exports,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said.
“Such tariffs are expected to have a more significant negative impact on Taiwan’s economy than the 20 percent blanket levy on Taiwanese goods announced last week,” Huang added.
The US Department of Commerce in April launched an investigation of the semiconductor market under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, paving the way for potential tariffs on semiconductors. Such levies threaten to sharply increase costs for large data center operators, including Microsoft Corp, OpenAI, Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc, that plan to spend billions of dollars on advanced semiconductors needed to propel their artificial intelligence businesses.
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.
RSS