A comment made by President-Elect Donald Trump accusing Taiwan of stealing U.S. chip production isn’t going over well in Taiwan.
The U.S. semiconductor sector may suffer as a result of a remark made by President-Elect Donald Trump months prior to the election. Trump was cited as stating, “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” in the Bloomberg Business Week article published on July 16. Really, how foolish are we? They took all of our chip business. They are extremely rich. As a result, Taiwan’s economic minister refuted Trump’s remarks in September and pointed out that American corporations commission TSMC chips.
However, there appears to be a greater reaction from Taiwan, since the nation has allegedly stopped TSMC’s ambitions to manufacture 2nm processors there. The government of Taiwan has “forbidden” the foundry from producing 2nm chips outside of Taiwan, including the United States, despite TSMC’s desire to do so. In 2025, TSMC plans to begin mass-producing 2nm chips in Taiwan.
It is anticipated that TSMC will begin producing circuits utilizing its 4nm/5nm nodes at its Arizona fab next month. Although the industry will have advanced past the 2nm node for smartphone application processors by then, the foundry hoped to produce 2nm chips in the United States by the end of the 2020s. However, any strain in Taiwan-U.S. ties would not assist the United States in becoming self-sufficient in the semiconductor sector, which is undoubtedly an objective that President-Elect Trump would want to achieve.
Trump will reportedly be attending the TSMC factory launch in Arizona alongside current U.S. President Joe Biden, even though he is still the president-elect in December. The ceremony is anticipated to take place at the plant during the first week of December. The construction of the fabs was aided by subsidies and assistance from Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed in 2022. Trump dislikes the CHIPS Act and may repeal it when he returns to the White House, despite his desire for a robust domestic chip sector in the United States.
The fact that TSMC first decided to construct factories in Arizona under the first Trump administration only serves to heighten the drama. Therefore, because both Biden and Trump were instrumental in the building of the facilities, they ought to be present when TSMC launches its first factory in Arizona.
Numerous American businesses, like as Apple and Nvidia, rely significantly on TSMC. Because of this, it is difficult to predict that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship would worsen, however anything might occur in the next years.