It would be “impossible” to move 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor capacity to the U.S., the island’s top tariff negotiator said, pushing back against recent comments by American officials who called for a major production shift.
In an interview with Taiwanese television channel CTS that was broadcast late on Sunday, Taiwan Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said she had made it clear to Washington that Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem, built up over decades, could not be relocated.
“I have made it very clear to the United States that this is impossible,” she said, referring to the 40% goal the U.S. has floated.
That ecosystem will continue to grow in Taiwan, Cheng said, adding that the semiconductor industry would keep investing at home.
To be fair, this all started under the Biden administration with the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
The US is increasingly concerned that, if China invades Taiwan, it will completely lock them out from semiconductor manufacturing and crater the US economy. Rather than flex their soft power and exercise a little diplomacy like the US used to do in decades past, they’ve apparently decided that the invasion of Taiwan is inevitable and the only course of action is to bolster semiconductor manufacturing at home.
Trump, of course, has all the subtlety of a torpedo and his rhetoric here has been needlessly antagonistic… but yeah, this whole thing started under Biden and now Trump is pretending it was always his idea. So really the thing he stole was the policy.
While the CHIPS act was started under Biden, it was completely different from what is being done now. It was about developing a domestic source of semiconductors as a hedge against Taiwan being invaded and was done cooperatively with the Taiwanese with mutual benefits. The Taiwanese still owned the manufacturing here, so they would still benefit if the Chinese came invaded. Biden was doing what was smart to do and also had benefits for other countries, including EU allies, since everyone knows those plants in Taiwan are rigged to blow at the first hint of invasion…
Trump has removed the benefits and added tariffs and threats. He didn’t steal the policy. He inherited it and then changed it to be something evil.
So like in summary:
Biden Strategy: Bring taiwan companies to US as a redundancy and supply chain contingency.
Trump Strategy: Demand shit from Taiwan and threaten them when they fail to meet goals.
Like the trump strategy only incentivizes Taiwan to pursue a diplomatic solution with China.