Major Taiwanese newspaper China Times recently reported that the importance of U.S.-based chip manufacturing has greatly increased as a result of U.S. President Trump’s stated intention to bring manufacturing back to the United States and with his hard-line tariff policies. Although TSMC factories in the United States do not have the most advanced technology, the company has already won orders from leading tech companies like Nvidia and Apple. Before recent tariff policies went into effect, most U.S. companies were not willing to place orders for completion by TSMC’s US-based fabs due to high production costs.
TSMC has increased the price of its U.S.-made chips by 30 percent, yet it is still receiving a lot of orders from American customers. Industrial analysts expect that the Trump administration will soon apply separate tariffs on the semiconductor and electronic products category. This will likely lead to TSMC factories in the US becoming increasingly important, with possible price inflation forecasted for US-based chip fabrication.
Source: China Times, April 17, 2025
https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20250417001346-260410?chdtv