National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) today said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) could benefit from new US tariffs.
US President Donald Trump announced 100-percent tariffs on semiconductor imports, with exemptions for companies that already have or are in the process of building production facilities in the US.
TSMC is expected to be relatively unscathed as it has US factories, so key customers such as Nvidia are unlikely to face increased tariff costs for US-made chips.
Photo copied by Wu Hsin-tien
Nvidia also reportedly plans to invest hundreds of billions of US dollars in the US.
TSMC did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and a Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.
“At the present time, we are optimistic towards them [TSMC],” Liu said today.
As for Trump’s comments on Tuesday that TSMC would increase its investment to US$300 billion, Liu said that it was not discussed and that this outlook is based on the already-announced investment of US$165 billion.
Other Taiwanese firms that qualify for exemptions include Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (SAS, 中美晶), through its facility in Texas, and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), through its collaboration with Intel.
Liu made his comments at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties questioned him about tariffs.
In response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) about the new 100-percent tariffs, Liu said that the total impact is “not as big as imagined,” once TSMC and SAS are removed from the equation.
TSMC has factories in the US already not subject to tariffs, which is a positive for the company, Liu added.
The industry as a whole has three options for how to respond to tariffs: building factories in the US, like TSMC; acquiring manufacturing facilities through mergers and acquisitions, like SAS; and collaborating with US firms, like UMC, Liu said.
In response to questions about what would happen to small and medium-sized businesses without the ability to invest in the US, Liu said the government is launching two strategies.
The first is short-term support through a NT$95-billion (US$3.185 billion) special budget to help manage the immediate impact of tariffs, he said.
The second is focused on more longer-term planning to strengthen the industry by helping them connect to global markets, expand domestic demand and assist with AI transformation, Liu said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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