TECH NEWS – The US President wants to impose a staggeringly high tariff on products from one of the major chip manufacturers, and Trump wants to boost domestic production.
The Trump administration has come up with a plan to impose a tariff of up to 100% (!!!) on Taiwanese chips. The goal is clear: to give priority to US production. So a lot of computer or electronic goods will become very expensive unless the manufacturers decide to set up a chip manufacturing company in the US. Taiwan’s TSMC may find itself in such a situation. At the House conference, Trump said this would allow key technology to stay on US soil, forcing TSMC, for example, to set up production lines there rather than elsewhere.
“Specifically, in the very near future, we’re going to impose tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals to bring the production of these essential goods back to the United States. They left us and went to Taiwan. We want them back. And we don’t want to give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program that Biden gave everybody billions of dollars. They already have billions of dollars. They don’t have anything but money, Joe. They didn’t need money. They needed an incentive. And the incentive is going to be that they don’t want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” the American president said in the video below.
Trump has also previously called the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act a misguided move because it did nothing to benefit the U.S. chip market. Although the president has not yet specified how he would tax TSMC, for example, if it goes to 100%, it will also end up emptying the pockets of consumers faster. TSMC’s chips could make products significantly more expensive, which could reduce demand and cause the U.S. economy to end the year in the red. TSMC’s 3-nanometer manufacturing process could be out of reach for many companies if the U.S. market takes such a hit…
With the advent of the CHIPS Act, a number of companies have set up facilities in the US (such as TSMC in Arizona, which reportedly has already started manufacturing 4nm technology). TSMC promises that 2nm technology will also come to the US by the end of the decade. While the focus in the US is on ensuring domestic production, whether the tariff policy will lead to that goal is a mystery for now…
Source: WCCFTech
Trump announces he will be putting tariffs on semiconductors pic.twitter.com/miymN8aPMh
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 27, 2025