The Taiwanese giant of TSMC semiconductors announced on Monday March 3 from the White House that he was going to invest $ 100 billion in the United States, leading Taipei to demand that “his most advanced manufacturing processes” remain in the island so as not to weaken his position in the face of threats of Invasion of China. “They will invest at least 100 billion dollars in the United States in the short term to build state-of-the-art factories in semiconductor production,” said US President Donald Trump, speaking before the CEO of TSMC, CC Wei. This investment will allow “to create thousands of jobs”, “very well paid”, he greeted.
CC Wei said his business was already investing $ 65 billion for the construction of three factories in Arizona. The total investment, he explained, will now amount to 165 billion, for three other manufacturing plants and two packaging sites, still in Arizona. A research and development center is also planned.
Donald Trump has placed technology at the forefront of his second mandate, in the area of the sector in good place during his inauguration and announcing significant investments in infrastructure related to artificial intelligence (AI). He also called on foreign companies to create jobs in industry in the United States, advancing that this would allow them to escape the customs duties he sets up. Since February, he has notably hovered the threat of customs duties of 25 % on semiconductors.
“The largest market in the world”
Businesses “come here to invest a lot of money because they want to be in the largest market in the world, and they want to avoid the customs duties they would suffer if they were not installed here,” said the United States Minister of Commerce, Howard Larnick, also present in the White House on Monday. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has long undergone pressures to move a larger part of its production outside Taiwan, where most of its factories are located.
“The Trump administration seeks to bring the manufacture of electronic fleas to the United States,” said the New York Times. Note that Trump had threatened to impose customs duties up to 100 % on imported electronic chips, in particular those from Taiwan, recalls the South Morning China Post.
An investment of this size is subject to the green light from the Taiwanese authorities. The government will ensure that “its most advanced manufacturing processes remain in Taiwan,” said the presidency spokesperson Karen Kuo.
TSMC produces semiconductors used in all technological fields, Apple iPhones for cutting-edge artificial intelligence equipment from Nvidia. The Taiwanese giant is at the forefront of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution (producing the most advanced fleas in the world, necessary to feed the products designed by Silicon Valley.
What to “minimize” the consequences of a Chinese invasion?
But TSMC is also at the heart of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. Beijing claims sovereignty on Taiwan, which is supported by Washington, and threatens to resort to force to regain control. In this context, a massive relocation of the production of cutting-edge semiconductors could weaken the “silicone shield” which Taiwan enjoys because of the upheavals that would imply a war for the world tech market, according to the expert Yifan Chen. “Taiwan without semiconductor and tech industry, it’s like Ukraine without nuclear weapons”, compares this teacher to Tamkang University in Taiwan.
“It is important that we maintain our key position in the international industrial chain and that we are at the forefront of key technologies,” Prime Minister Cho Jung-Tai told the press. The Taiwanese Minister of Defense, Wellington Koo, said he was “convinced that the United States will not give up” the Asia-Pacific region. “The United States cannot withdraw (from the region) because it is due to its primary interest,” he said in words reported on Tuesday and “whether from an economic, geopolitical or military security point of view”.
Asked to find out if the establishment of the Taiwanese company in the United States would “minimize” the consequences for the United States of an invasion of the island by China, Donald Trump replied that he could not say ‘minimize’, it would obviously be a catastrophic event “. But the investment of TSMC “would at least place us in a position where we would have, for this very, very important activity, a very large part of this activity in the United States,” he said.