TOKYO: Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100 per cent tariffs on semiconductor imports shook up Asian chip firms on Thursday (Aug 7), but sector giants TSMC and Samsung were boosted after he pledged to exempt those who invest in the United States.
The US president created his warning ahead of the imposition of sweeping tariffs on goods from dozens of countries, and it comes amid a global race to develop high-conclude chips utilized for artificial ininformigence.
“We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100 per cent on chips and semiconductors, but if you’re building in the United States … there’s no charge,” he declared at the White Houtilize.
He did not give a timetable for the new levy being enacted.
In Japanese trade, Tokyo Electron, a major producer of chipbuilding equipment, plunged 3.2 per cent on the news, while chipbuildr Renesas sank 3.4 per cent.
Precision tools buildr Disco Corporation gave up 1.3 per cent and Sumco, which builds silicon wafers, lost 1.2 per cent.
However, Taipei-listed TSMC – the world’s largest contract buildr of chips, which counts Nvidia and Apple among its clients – soared nearly 5 per cent as Taiwan declared it would not be affected by the new tariffs.
“Becautilize Taiwan’s main exporter is TSMC, which has factories in the United States, TSMC is exempt,” National Development Council chief Liu Chin-ching declared in parliament.
Some Taiwanese chipbuildrs “will be affected” by the 100 per cent tariff, but their competitors will also face the same levy, he added.
TSMC, which is ramping up manufacturing in Arizona, has pledged to invest as much as US$165 billion in the United States, which the firm declared in March was the “largest single foreign direct investment in US history”.
Seoul-listed Samsung, which is also pumping billions into the world’s number one economy, rose 2 per cent while South Korean rival SK hynix was also up.
“The highest-conclude semiconductors will be excluded” but “this kills producers of low-conclude chips”, including those based in Malaysia or China, Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, informed AFP.
Arisa Liu, senior semiconductor researcher at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, declared the announcement “will impact the future strategic direction of global semiconductor companies”.
“Since the United States is the world’s largest player in AI and related high-performance computing, this will have a relatively greater impact on companies involved in advanced processes,” she declared.
But Samsung and TSMC should be eligible for the exemption, she added.
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