US President Donald Trump's recent proposal to impose a 100% tariff on Taiwan's chips has attracted industry attention and caused the Taiwan stock market to fluctuate in recent days. Industry trend media "Verdict" pointed out that if this policy is implemented, the price of US chips may soar by 59%, and will have a serious impact on the global semiconductor supply chain, which may cause a surge in costs for US technology companies and even prompt companies to move their businesses overseas.
According to an article published on the website of the Washington think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) on January 1 by Stephen Ezell, vice president of the foundation, Trump's strategy is to impose high tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors.Force Taiwan's semiconductor industry to move its production base to the United Statesto avoid high tariffs. However, experts warn that the move could backfire and cause the U.S. semiconductor industry to face huge cost pressures.
According to statistics from the U.S. International Trade Commission, the logic chips imported into the United States44.2% are from Taiwan, once Taiwan's semiconductor supply is blocked,US chip prices could rise as much as 59%, and affectsApple, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Intel and NVIDIAand other major technology companies.
Isabel Al-Dhahir, chief analyst at GlobalData's Trends platform, pointed out that Trump's tariff proposal is essentially equivalent to imposing a tax on TSMC. He warned that this will further increase the burden on American consumers and may cause American companies to choose to turn to other semiconductor supply chains.
At the same time, Christopher Ohm, founder and CEO of research firm SignumIntel, also emphasized that although TSMC has accelerated local production in the United States in recent years and invested $650 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, which is the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in U.S. history, the United States currently still has no production plan that can completely replace TSMC.
Another unintended consequence of Trump’s tariff policy is that Taiwanese semiconductor companies may choose to shift production to places like Malaysia or Vietnam to avoid U.S. tariffs. These countries have been actively developing semiconductor manufacturing in recent years, attracting investment from international technology companies, and may become bases for future industrial transfer.
According to Verdict, if Taiwanese companies relocate part of their production capacity to Southeast Asia, they can not only avoid US tariffs, but also take advantage of preferential policies provided by local governments to further reduce costs. This will pose greater challenges to Trump's original plan to promote domestic manufacturing in the United States, and may even cause the United States to lose some of its competitive advantages in the chip industry.
