Taiwan and the US are important business partners, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday, in response to former US president Donald Trump saying Taiwan took away the US’ semiconductor business.
Many of Taiwan’s major chip customers are from the US, while Taiwan sources many of its semiconductor equipment from the US, Wang said.
“So Taiwan and the United States have become important business partners, instead of rivals,” Wang told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting at the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: CNA
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump was asked whether the US should help defend Taiwan if it means going to war with China.
“If I answer that question, it’d put me in a very bad negotiating position,” Trump said, but then pivoted to the business angle.
“With that being said, Taiwan did take all of our chip business. We used to make our own chips. Now they’re made in Taiwan,” he said.
“Remember this. Taiwan took — smart, brilliant — they took our business away. We should have stopped them. We should have taxed them. We should have tariffed them,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments drew widespread attention in Taiwanese media, with some suggesting he was hinting that he would not come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacks, and others saying he would restrict bilateral trade in semiconductors.
Wang said the US has repeatedly said Taiwan is an important partner, as both sides have built close business ties, including their partnership in the semiconductor industry.
The semiconductor industry has a complicated and diversified supply chain in which every country has its own role to play to allow the industry to prosper, she said.
The US, for example, plays a big role in advanced chip design and semiconductor equipment manufacturing, while Japan and Europe supply semiconductor raw materials and equipment respectively, she said.
Taiwan specializes in pure wafer foundry and IC packaging and testing services, with about 90 percent of high-end chips rolled out from Taiwan.
Jackson Hu (胡國強), a former chairman and CEO of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), had a more succinct response to Trump’s comments.
“Trump is completely ignorant about the semiconductor industry,” Hu was quoted as saying by Digitimes Asia.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said that Taiwan and the US mutually benefit from bilateral trade, as both sides have a consensus to push for such a relationship, citing the signing of an initial agreement on the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade on June 1 as an example.
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