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The Taiwanese president has pledged to promote procurement and investment in the United States as he is in a hurry to meet Donald Trump’s global tariff threat and pressure on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.
“We will buy to increase our investment in the US and balance bilateral trade,” Raichingte told reporters Friday. The deficit began just hours after the US president announced plans to impose “mutual tariffs” on countries where the US operates large trade.
The US trade deficit with Taiwan, its seventh largest trading partner, grew to $73.9 billion last year to $26.1 billion, due to growing demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips. Most are made by Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers, the world’s largest chip manufacturer.
However, Lie advocated Taiwan’s main role in global chip manufacturing, opposed Trump’s demand that the semiconductor business that the US president accused of “stealing” Taiwan would be returned to America.
“As the world’s most powerful semiconductor (manufacturing) power, we would like to emphasize that Taiwan has the ability to respond to new situations and is willing to respond,” Lai said.
He pledged to “ensure the integrity of Taiwan’s global supply chain,” and proposed the “Global Semiconductor Democrat Supply Chain Initiative” to help the US build a more resilient supply chain. did. .
Following pressure from the first Trump and the Biden administration and its US clients, TSMC has pledged to invest $65 billion in three manufacturing plants in Arizona. The plant still accounts for less than a fifth of the total capacity of TSMC upon completion, but it is the company’s largest overseas investment.
However, Trump threatened to overturn the subsidy deal granted under his predecessor. This could put more than $6 billion in financial support for TSMC at risk. Trump also wants to rebuild chip manufacturing in the US on a much larger scale.
When he announced its latest tariff plans on Thursday, Trump repeated accusations that Taiwan had “taken our chip business.”
“We want to bring that business back to the US,” he said.
Taiwan’s senior national security authorities said Taipei will support TSMC’s further US investment. “If TSMC finds it after the evaluation. . It will help them to globalize. And of course we will discuss this with the US side to negotiate the best possible outcome. It helps,” he said.
But the discussion with Washington needs to find a common foundation, officials said. “Our tech industry, especially TSMC, is extremely important to national security.”
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Taipei, who holds a 6.4% stake in TSMC and has a seat on the board, believes that the country’s semi-monopoly as the most advanced semiconductor supplier will guarantee democratic support for China’s invasion Masu.
But Trump officials say the dependency is too high.
In another effort to win goodwill in Washington, Ly has pledged to raise Taiwan’s defence spending from 2.5% of GDP to over 3%.
He also said Taipei is the US’s “most trustworthy trading partner,” but added that the Trump administration is pursuing “a completely different strategy and policy than it had ever been.”
