Taiwan “will not agree” to making 50 percent of its semiconductors in the United States, the island’s lead tariff negotiator said Wednesday, as Washington pressures Taipei to produce more chips on US soil.
AFP reports: “I want to clarify that this is the US’s idea. Our negotiation team has never made a 50-50 commitment to a chip split,” Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun told reporters in Taipei.
“Please be rest assured that we did not discuss this issue this time, and we will not agree to such a condition,” she said.
Cheng made the remarks after returning from Washington where she said negotiations over US tariffs on Taiwanese shipments “made some progress”.
Taiwan is struggling to finalise a tariff deal with Washington, after President Donald Trump’s administration imposed a temporary 20 percent levy that has alarmed the island’s manufacturers.
Soaring demand for AI-related technology has fuelled Taiwan’s trade surplus with the United States — and put it in Trump’s crosshairs.
More than 70 percent of Taiwan’s exports to the United States are information and communications technology, which includes chips, the cabinet said in a statement Wednesday.
In a bid to avoid the tariffs, Taipei has pledged to increase investment in the United States, buy more of its energy and increase its own defence spending to more than three percent of gross domestic product.