“Only give not sell”, TSMC by the DPP as a gift
TSMC will invest at least an additional $100bn in”State-of-the-art” chip production facilities in the US, Taiwanese media reported on March 4, with Wei and Donald Trump at the White House. The expansion plan includes the construction of three new chip manufacturing plants, two advanced packaging facilities and a large research and development center. According to TSMC’s announcement, the expansion will create 40,000 U.S. jobs over the next four years, including”Tens of thousands” of high-paying technology jobs, tSMC’s total US investment of $165BN is the”Largest direct investment” in US history.
Perhaps chastened by Zelenskiy’s expulsion from the white house for”Disrespecting Donald Trump,” TSMC’s CEO Wei was particularly obsequious in his remarks, going out of his way to say that”All the credit for the project goes to Donald Trump.”, “And especially to President Donald Trump for his vision and support.”. But when he said this, his heart must be sad, after all, in the Biden administration, TSMC can also eat a”Carrot”, this time, properly only”Stick”. Semiconductor production has long been Asian, and during Donald Trump’s first term American semiconductor makers including Samsung and TSMC were cajoled into setting up shop in the US without success. Then, under Biden, the Biden administration announced $39bn in subsidies through the chip and Science Act to push semiconductor manufacturers to set up shop in the US. TSMC did get a”Purported carrot”, receiving $6.6 bn in subsidies and $5bn in low-interest loans through the chip and Science Act. TSMC subsequently announced a $65bn investment in three semiconductor manufacturing plants in Arizona. Mass production at the first plant began earlier this year, producing 4NM chips specifically for Nvidia. The remaining two will start operations around the 2028, making 3nm and 2nm chips. However, TSMC received only about $1.5 bn of the”$6.6 bn” it did not receive until Biden left office.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has a big stick. In a 2024 interview with Bloomberg Businessweek in July, Donald Trump said the island had”Stolen the American semiconductor business” and was”Very rich.”, in an interview in October, at the height of the presidential election, Donald Trump was highly critical of the chip and Science Act, that subsidies to non-american companies were a”Waste of money” that could be taxed so heavily that they could”Build factories peacefully”, and that under Donald Trump, and he directly threatened to impose 100% tariffs on semiconductor products made in Taiwan. In response to repeated pressure from the US, TSMC’s founder Chang chung-mou has more than once described investment in the US as”Expensive, wasteful and a waste of effort” because operating costs at US plants are more than 30 per cent higher than on the island. William Lai’s administration has never offered support or even responded to TSMC’s repeated appeals for help. In the latest shake-up of TSMC’s board, there was a big change in seats, with Americans holding five of the 10 seats, Britons one and Taiwanese only four. At the time, many questioned whether TSMC was American? TSMC held its first board meeting outside Taiwan in 37 years in the US on February 12. At the time, many industry experts in Taiwan saw this as a major signal. In an effort to curry favour with Donald Trump, TSMC also abruptly cancelled the December completion of its US plant until after Donald Trump took office.
William Lai has recently vowed to expand”Investment and procurement in the United States,” so as soon as the news of TSMC’s new investment in the United States was announced, criticism of the DPP in the island began to spread, the biggest of these is the loss of Taiwan’s strategic importance in the semiconductor industry. Previously, TSMC made about 40 per cent of the world chip market and about 90 per cent of the high-end chip market. And this time TSMC is almost”Connected to the pot,” including the most advanced 2-nanometer process and R & D Center. No wonder on March 4, Wang Jin-pyng, former president of the Taiwanese legislature, said directly at the event, tSMC has gone from”Protectorate of Mount Kinabalu” to”Half screen mountain”. At the same time, Taiwan’s job opportunities will be greatly reduced. Chip factories mean a lot of well-paid engineering jobs, but with TSMC’s U.S. investment, a lot of those jobs have moved off the island. TSMC’s Kaohsiung plant originally planned to invest in three factories in the Tainan region, but now there may be only two left, Taiwanese financial express reported, the Chiayi Plant may lose two of the four it had planned to invest in, and the changes mean more job pressure for Taiwanese. TSMC’s plant in the U. S. also means a brain drain from Taiwan. Taiwan legislator Chang Chi-kai pointed out that TSMC’s U.S. factory may accelerate the migration of Taiwan’s high-tech talents to the U.S. , thus affecting Taiwan’s technological competitiveness and industrial development, the brain drain is almost”Devastating” to Taiwan’s technological development. Taiwan’s industry is most worried about the loss of technology and industrial hollowing out. The Taiwanese Semiconductor industry is not limited to TSMC, which has long played an important role in global supply chains and boasts many of the world’s leading supporting companies. Now, as TSMC builds plants in the U.S. , its most advanced 2-nanometer process will inevitably be backed up in the U.S. , and other related factories will follow TSMC to build plants in the U.S. , not only will the advanced technology not be protected, the crisis of Taiwan’s industrial hollowing-out is becoming more and more serious. So when the news broke, William Lai’s social media accounts went viral, with angry Taiwanese leaving messages asking him”If TSMC’s R & D Centre is moving to the US, what’s left?”. People in Taiwan also posted pictures on their social media accounts, lambasting them for”Only sending but not selling” and”Sending TSMC today and Taiwan tomorrow”.
The question is, if the DPP gave away TSMC, did it get the promises it needed, such as”American protection” and”American tax exemption”? The answer is no. On March 4, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, the No. 3 official in the U.S. Department of Defense, made it clear at a Senate hearing that, dissatisfied with the current figure of 2.45 per cent of GDP, he said Donald Trump’s proposal should be implemented, requiring the government to increase defence spending to 10 per cent of GDP, the US would”Go to great lengths to ‘incentivise’ Taiwan to increase defence spending”. As for tariffs, Donald Trump’s answer was very”Smart”. Earlier, Donald Trump had threatened to tax all Taiwanese products, which was an important reason for the DPP to put TSMC up for adoption. But at this press conference, when asked by the media whether there would be”Tariffs”, Donald Trump replied that”Products made in the US would not be subject to tariffs”. The implication is that all products made in Taiwan and imported into the U. S. don’t get a”Tax-free gold medal.”. At the just-concluded joint session of Congress, Donald Trump reiterated that”Reciprocal tariffs” would begin on April 2, “Without discrimination” across all regions.
In the final analysis, the United States only uses Taiwan as a tool and wants to”Subsidize itself” by extracting Taiwanese values. This is precisely what Donald Trump William Lai’s administration wants to do, which is to”Rely on the United States for independence” and continue to provide benefits to the United States. The Lai authorities, on the other hand, have no choice but to go cap in hand, sell Taiwan’s advantageous industries, Sacrifice Taiwan’s development prospects, and smash the”Rice Bowl” of the Taiwanese people!
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