Name: TSMC's Added US$100B Investment to U.S. 'Expands Taiwan's Strength': Premier | TaiwanPlus News
Uploaded: 2025-03-06T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 8 min 38 s
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A new deal that will see Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC invest 100 billion dollars in US chip manufacturing will make Taiwan stronger.

That's according to Premier Zhou Rongcai.

Officials here in Taiwan are playing down concerns the deal will see TSMC become Americanized.

Joyce Tseung is following the story for us from our newsroom here in Taipei.

Joyce, this is a huge deal announced by Donald Trump.

Right, major announcement here for Taiwan-US ties.

As you mentioned, TSMC has pledged an additional 100 billion US dollars in investments into the United States.

That's on top of the ongoing 65 billion dollars it's spending on building three factories in the state of Arizona.

This cements TSMC now as the largest single source of foreign direct investment in US history.

The TSMC's chair and CEO C.C. Wei shared, unveiled these plans together with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington D.C., where they shed light on what exactly the Taiwanese chip giant will be building on American soil.

A big announcement from the White House as U.S.

President Donald Trump and TSMC chair and CEO C.C. Wei agree on the largest foreign direct investment in the country's history.

Taiwan's TSMC unveiled that its total investment to the United States will reach 165 billion U.S. dollars.

The move a way to avoid Trump's tariff threat of 25 percent or higher on imported chips as Trump eyes a larger goal of bringing chip manufacturing to the United States.

The most powerful A.I. chips in the world will be made right here in America and it'll be a big percentage of the chips made by his company.

But as you know they're based mostly in Taiwan and they're far and away the biggest.

TSMC is the unmatched leader in making advanced semiconductors, powering cutting edge tech like A.I. from customers in NVIDIA and Apple.

The firm's head, C.C.Wei, shared details of the plan from the White House which includes five more facilities to its existing over 1,001-acre site in Phoenix, Arizona and a center dedicated to research and development.

We are going to build three more new fabs.

After we promise the three fabs already, and another two very advanced packaging fab and most importantly, the R&D Center [is] also in Arizona.

In recent weeks, Taiwan's all-important chip industry has been in focus, following Trump's tariff threats and his repeated accusations that Taiwan stole American chip business.

Though Taipei does not share official diplomatic relations with Washington, the two share robust unofficial ties.

The US is also Taiwan's largest arms backer in the face of a Chinese threat of invasion.

In Taiwan, TSMC's leadership has created a sense of protection from external threats.

Some fear that TSMC's expansion overseas will take away from its advantage.

Taiwan's premier responding to the expansion saying it will in fact strengthen and extend Taiwan's power.

Meanwhile in Washington, Trump was asked whether TSMC's added investment would "minimize the impact to the US" in regard to the chip sector.

Should China decide to isolate or take Taiwan by force.

This would certainly... I can't say minimize that would be a catastrophic event, obviously.

But it will at least give us a position where we have in this very very important business we would have a very big part of it in the United States.

So we have a big impact if something should happen with Taiwan.

Though acknowledging a potential conflict over Taiwan as catastrophic, Trump did not say if TSMC's investment would come with US security assurances for Taiwan.

Trump and TSMC's way instead focusing on the thousands of high paying jobs the added investment will create.

Earlier TaiwanPlus spoke with Taipei-based economist Daniel Liu from the think tank CIER and he says what's important to note is that the tech going to the US will likely be at the current 2025 standard of advanced technology or older.

Remember, all this tech is advancing and improving at a fast pace every year, and so, TSMC's latest innovations will likely remain in Taiwan.

But still, Liu says that it's clear that Trump is using these tariffs as a "weapon" and not just on Taiwan to get what he wants.

Speaking to Dave Nicholson, though, a US-based tech analyst, he said that to see this as a case as of TSMC yielding to Trump would be mistaken.

The US priority to boost its chip sector was also seen with former President Joe Biden, albeit the methods were different.

I think you really have to be fair and look at this across the three administrations.

The goal has been the same for the Trump administration and the Biden administration.

The methods may be different but the end goal is the same to have some measure of security in the semiconductor supply line in the US and then some domestic support for the economy.

But if you look at overall TSMC production, I think analysts say I think we're looking at somewhere between five and ten percent of overall production would end up eventually being in the US.

So it's not a massive hit to the Taiwan Taiwanese domestic market.

It was estimated to be about five percent before the estimate today.

It's hard to say if the estimate today or if the announcement today means that that will triple with inflation adjusted dollars and everything else.

But I think it's fair to say that it's still low double digits at the most.

The main stakeholders here are obviously the US, TSMC and Taiwan.

What are each getting out of this investment?

And what would you say is the impact on Taiwan's so-called Silicon Shield.

So you know, the prowess that TSMC has, the dominance that TSMC has globally, I don't think is affected either way.

On balance, the main benefit is to the U.S. domestically in terms of jobs.

I think that the relationship between the United States and Taiwan is as important as it ever has been.

So if there are benefits that I can see in terms of tighter relationship in the event that things get, you know, more worrisome from, you know, in terms of pressure from China,

this can be functionally the equivalent of a closer relationship with the United States.

I think this level investment is a good investment in in Taiwan's security and it does strengthen that that shield that you're talking about.

But it's a legitimate concern moving forward.

You don't want to give up a lot more in the future.

Now Taiwan's government will need to approve TSMC's additional investment.

The economy minister has said they will review it in accordance with the law and also to ensure Taiwan's overall competitiveness in the sector.

But look, it would be unlikely that they won't approve it.

Officials are already saying that this is a good thing for Taiwan.

And given that Taiwan is an island limited in space and resources and also that it's prone to natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons,

it's been argued before that expanding the country's chips footprint is a good thing for Taiwanese resilience.