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.
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp said they are leaving a global climate-banking group, becoming the latest Wall Street lenders to exit the coalition in the past month. In a statement, Citigroup said while it remains committed to achieving net zero emissions, it is exiting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). Bank of America said separately on Tuesday that it is also leaving NZBA, adding that it would continue to work with clients on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The banks’ departure from NZBA follows Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Wells Fargo & Co. The largest US financial institutions are under increasing pressure
TRENDS: The bitcoin rally sparked by US president-elect Donald Trump’s victory has slowed down, partly due to outflows from exchange-traded funds for the token Gold is heading for one of its biggest annual gains this century, with a 27 percent advance that has been fueled by US monetary easing, sustained geopolitical risks and a wave of purchases by central banks. While bullion has ticked lower since US president-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory in last month’s election, its gains this year still outstrip most other commodities. Base metals have had a mixed year, while iron ore has tumbled, and lithium’s woes have deepened. The varied performances highlight the absence of a single, over-riding driver that has steered the complex’s fortunes, while also putting the spotlight
Ibiden Co, the dominant supplier of chip package substrates used in Nvidia Corp’s cutting-edge semiconductors, might need to dial up the pace of production capacity increases to keep up with demand, company CEO Koji Kawashima said. Sales of the 112-year-old company’s artificial intelligence (AI)-use substrates are robust, with customers buying up all that Ibiden has, Kawashima said. That demand is likely to last at least through next year, he added. Ibiden is building a new substrate factory in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, which is expected to go online at 25 percent production capacity around the last quarter of next year before reaching 50
RSS