Taipei said on Thursday that Taiwan’s chip manufacturing giant TSMC “exempts” US President Donald Trump’s 100% tariff on semiconductor chips.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation is the world’s largest bargaining contract manufacturer and calculates Nvidia and Apple among its customers.
“Since Taiwan’s main exporter is TSMC, which has factories in the United States, TSMC is exempt,” said Chin-Ching, head of the National Development Commission, in a parliamentary briefing.
Liu said some Taiwanese chip makers “will be subject to 100% tariffs”, but their competitors will face the same tax.
Liu said: “Taiwan is currently leading the world and I believe that if the leader and competitors are on the same starting line, the leader will continue to lead.”
“This is our initial assessment at the moment, but we will continue to observe and propose short-term and medium-term assistance.”
“We will impose very large tariffs on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said at the White House several hours later.
Trump told reporters that the level would be “100%”, although he did not provide a timeline for the time being when new taxes were issued.
Trump said companies that “build or work on building in the United States” will not be charged.
Taiwan is a global power in semiconductor manufacturing, with more than half of the world’s bargaining chips, and almost all high-end chips are manufactured there.
TSMC was in Trump’s crosshairs, accusing Taiwan of stealing the U.S. chip industry.
It was hoped that TSMC’s plan to invest an additional $100 billion in the United States would save Taiwan from new tariffs.
Taiwan has also pledged to increase investment in the U.S., buy more U.S. energy and increase defense spending to more than one-third of GDP in order to avoid Trump’s taxes.
Trump imposed temporary tariffs of 20% on Taiwan, excluding semiconductors as we and Taiwan negotiators attempted to reach an agreement.
