President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday, August 6, that he planned to impose the customs tasks of 100% on “fleas and semiconductors”, without specifying, for the moment, the date of entry into force of this new customs tax.
“We are going to put important customs tasks on fleas and semiconductors,” he said from the White House, “about 100%. But this is good news for companies that do them in the United States.”
After this statement, Taiwan hastened to specify that the giant of the TSMC semiconductors was “exempt” from the customs duties announced by Donald Trump. Since he is “Taiwan’s main exporter and has factories in the United States, TSMC is exempt,” said a Taiwanese official at an information meeting in Parliament on Wednesday.
TSMC produces chips used in all technological areas, apple iPhones for artificial intelligence equipment of NVIDIA.
100 billion TSMC investments in the United States
Liu Chin-Ching, director of the National Development Council, said that other Taiwanese fleas manufacturers “will be affected” by the measure. “We will continue to observe the situation and propose short and medium term assistance measures,” he said.
Several months have passed since the US president, who accuses Taiwan of sabotaging the American semiconductor industry, made this floating threat. To protect itself as the largest flea manufacturer in the world, TSMC announced in March investing the colossal sum of $ 100 billion in the United States to build factories.
The concentration of chips manufacturing in Taiwan has been defined for a long time under the concept of “silicon shield”, protecting it from an invasion or a block of China and inciting the United States to defend it against Beijing. This massive TSMC investment to avoid customs tasks could damage the Taiwanese economy and weaken this “shield.”
Taiwan is also affected by a temporary surcharge of 20% in its products, with the exception of the semiconductors, waiting for the signing of an agreement between Taipei and Washington. The archipelago, which Beijing claims to be part of its territory, also promised to increase to buy more American energy and bring its military spending to more than 3% of GDP to avoid new tasks of US customs.
Source: BFM TV
