Semiwiki on LinkedIn Semiwiki on Facebook Semiwiki on Twitter Register / Log in 
Array
(
    [content] => 
    [params] => Array
        (
            [0] => /forum/threads/white-house-says-taiwan-tariffs-won%E2%80%99t-apply-to-chips.22478/
        )

    [addOns] => Array
        (
            [DL6/MLTP] => 13
            [Hampel/TimeZoneDebug] => 1000070
            [SV/ChangePostDate] => 2010200
            [SemiWiki/Newsletter] => 1000010
            [SemiWiki/WPMenu] => 1000010
            [SemiWiki/XPressExtend] => 1000010
            [ThemeHouse/XLink] => 1000970
            [ThemeHouse/XPress] => 1010570
            [XF] => 2021770
            [XFI] => 1050270
        )

    [wordpress] => /var/www/html
)

White House Says Taiwan Tariffs Won’t Apply to Chips

fansink

fansink

Well-known member
Trump said the import tariff rate for Taiwan will be set at 32%. Initially, that looked like bad news for American chip makers like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm, which are customers of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

About 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, including the main processors inside mobile phones, AI graphics processing units, and computer chips, are made in Taiwan by TSMC.

Shares of TSMC were down 4.5% in after-hours trading following Trump's announcement. Nvidia was down 3.3%, AMD fell 2.6%, and Qualcomm was off 2.7%.

Then the White House published a fact sheet after Trump’s announcement that said semiconductors would not be subject to that reciprocal tariff.

Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm were still all lower in after-hours trading after that fact sheet was published.

www.barrons.com

White House Says Taiwan Tariffs Won’t Apply to Chips

Trump said the import tariff rate for Taiwan will be set at 32%. Initially, that looked like bad news for American chip makers like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm, which are customers of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. About 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, including the
www.barrons.com www.barrons.com
 
fansink said:
Trump said the import tariff rate for Taiwan will be set at 32%. Initially, that looked like bad news for American chip makers like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm, which are customers of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

About 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, including the main processors inside mobile phones, AI graphics processing units, and computer chips, are made in Taiwan by TSMC.

Shares of TSMC were down 4.5% in after-hours trading following Trump's announcement. Nvidia was down 3.3%, AMD fell 2.6%, and Qualcomm was off 2.7%.

Then the White House published a fact sheet after Trump’s announcement that said semiconductors would not be subject to that reciprocal tariff.

Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm were still all lower in after-hours trading after that fact sheet was published.
Click to expand...

Technically, not being subject to the reciprocal tariff of 32% doesn't mean it's not subject to some other tariff.
 
Does the white house know the difference between a chip and a wafer? Can TSMC send a wafer to AZ, package it, and make it a "Made in the USA" chip?

How did our trade deficit get so big?

1743694224278.png
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Does the white house know the difference between a chip and a wafer? Can TSMC send a wafer to AZ, package it, and make it a "Made in the USA" chip?

How did our trade deficit get so big?
Click to expand...

Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, has firmly stated that the United States will no longer serve as the world’s piggy bank. His remarks signal a shift toward prioritizing national economic interests. This stance reflects a broader push to redefine global financial relationships.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Does the white house know the difference between a chip and a wafer? Can TSMC send a wafer to AZ, package it, and make it a "Made in the USA" chip?

How did our trade deficit get so big?

View attachment 2999
Click to expand...
The way this was calculated was = (Deficits/Imports)%. There are so many trade barriers against US goods by the Rest of the World, especially in Asia that US exporters are at a significant disadvantage.

Listing a few tactics used by the world, especially Asian countries:
1) Tariffs,
2) Regulations to buy local,
3) Industrial policies to subsidize local production (e.g. Chinese EVs),
4) Currency devaluation to cheapen local products (e.g. Print local currency to buy US$, strengthening the US$ and making exports from the US more expensive and imports to the US cheaper).

Once you do the above for a few decades, as have been the case, capital-intensive industries (i.e. Real Production) move out of the US.

David Ricardo's "Free Trade/Comparative Advantage" does not exist in the real world. Every country manipulates to keep critical industries at home; average US tariffs for the last few decades has been ~2.5% (the lowest in the world); hence it lost most of the capital-heavy industries. Wall Street's new darling has been capital-light industries (e.g. Software companies, Fabless etc). With yesterday's announcement, the average US tariff is somewhere around ~25%.

In my view, we're likely witnessing the end of "make in low-cost countries, sell in high-cost markets" business mantra of the last few decades, if Trump's new trade policy is practiced long enough.
 
So the timeline of events was:

1. We will remove exemptions for old punitive tariffs (earthquake in Cupertino)
2. We will put 32% tariff on Taiwan (NYSE explodes)
3. We will not make any exceptions (few bankers jumped out of windows)
4. Exemptions list comes out after all: people look, no chips in sight (Tim Cook tying his tie to the ceiling light)
5. Taiwan MOFA - we pull the US fab license
6. Clarification flies out of the white house the next second: Microchips will be exempted after all

Blackmail works
 
lefty said:
Those "trade deficits" only include goods and ignore services. If you include the services, for instance the trade deficit to EU would be almost negligible
Click to expand...
Not trying to argue. Assume you are talking about the services offered by big tech. They may offset the deficits. But the at the same time, EU has very big fines on them. Below is summary of fines in the past 10 years obtained from Google Gemini. I dont remember these companies were punished in other areas for similar practices. I feel these fines are tariff too.

Notable Fines (2015 - April 2025):

  • March/April 2025 (Expected): As mentioned before, Apple and Meta are expected to be fined under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for the first time.
  • November 2024: Meta was fined €839.83 million for anti-competitive practices related to Facebook Marketplace.
  • October 2024: Google was fined €2.53 billion for unfairly promoting its Google Shopping results.
  • March 2024: Apple was fined $2 billion for anticompetitive practices related to Apple Music.
  • May 2023: Meta (Facebook) was fined $1.3 billion for GDPR violations related to data transfers to the US.
  • 2022: Meta (Instagram) was fined approximately $400 million for GDPR violations concerning children's data.
  • July 2021: Amazon was fined $888 million for GDPR violations.
  • 2019: Google was fined €1.49 billion by the European Commission for abusing its dominance in the online search advertising market through its AdSense for Search platform.
  • 2018: Google was fined a record €4.34 billion (around $5.1 billion USD at the time) by the EU for using its Android mobile operating system to cement the dominance of its search engine. This fine was later slightly reduced on appeal.
  • 2017: Google was fined €2.42 billion (around $2.7 billion USD at the time) by the EU for abusing its dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to its own comparison shopping service.
Other Notable Cases:

  • Apple's Back Tax Bill (2016): While not a direct fine for anti-competitive behavior or GDPR violations, Apple was ordered by the EU in 2016 to pay €13 billion (around $14 billion USD at the time) in back taxes to Ireland, as the Commission deemed its tax arrangements with Ireland to be illegal state aid.
 
chillfire said:
Not trying to argue. Assume you are talking about the services offered by big tech. They may offset the deficits. But the at the same time, EU has very big fines on them. Below is summary of fines in the past 10 years obtained from Google Gemini. I dont remember these companies were punished in other areas for similar practices. I feel these fines are tariff too.

Notable Fines (2015 - April 2025):

  • March/April 2025 (Expected): As mentioned before, Apple and Meta are expected to be fined under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for the first time.
  • November 2024: Meta was fined €839.83 million for anti-competitive practices related to Facebook Marketplace.
  • October 2024: Google was fined €2.53 billion for unfairly promoting its Google Shopping results.
  • March 2024: Apple was fined $2 billion for anticompetitive practices related to Apple Music.
  • May 2023: Meta (Facebook) was fined $1.3 billion for GDPR violations related to data transfers to the US.
  • 2022: Meta (Instagram) was fined approximately $400 million for GDPR violations concerning children's data.
  • July 2021: Amazon was fined $888 million for GDPR violations.
  • 2019: Google was fined €1.49 billion by the European Commission for abusing its dominance in the online search advertising market through its AdSense for Search platform.
  • 2018: Google was fined a record €4.34 billion (around $5.1 billion USD at the time) by the EU for using its Android mobile operating system to cement the dominance of its search engine. This fine was later slightly reduced on appeal.
  • 2017: Google was fined €2.42 billion (around $2.7 billion USD at the time) by the EU for abusing its dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to its own comparison shopping service.
Other Notable Cases:

  • Apple's Back Tax Bill (2016): While not a direct fine for anti-competitive behavior or GDPR violations, Apple was ordered by the EU in 2016 to pay €13 billion (around $14 billion USD at the time) in back taxes to Ireland, as the Commission deemed its tax arrangements with Ireland to be illegal state aid.
Click to expand...
What does that have to do with it? If Google abuses it's power then they are fined for abusing their power - you can't use that as justification for applying punishment tariffs
Also, Services are more than just big tech. There is transport, travel, communications, construction services, insurance and financial, computer and information services, royalties and license fees, etc.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Does the white house know the difference between a chip and a wafer? Can TSMC send a wafer to AZ, package it, and make it a "Made in the USA" chip?

How did our trade deficit get so big?

View attachment 2999
Click to expand...

I can't say for each country in the list but Taiwan's 64% import tariffs and exchange rate manipulation is definitely based on fake data manipulation to please Trump. Unfortunately, in today's political environment, few or no Republicans around him or in the Congress dare to ask him how he came out these numbers.
 
lefty said:
What does that have to do with it? If Google abuses it's power then they are fined for abusing their power - you can't use that as justification for applying punishment tariffs
Also, Services are more than just big tech. There is transport, travel, communications, construction services, insurance and financial, computer and information services, royalties and license fees, etc.
Click to expand...

If these big tech were abusing their power, would that only happen in EU? I guess the answer is no. Then why didn't we see big fines on these big tech from other governments? My theory is that EU cant stop the services being used by the people there however they want to protect their not so competitive local business. They just invent some barriers to make it harder for these big techs taking more market shares. Those may not be tariffs by naming, however they serve the similar purposes. I admit I am very biased on EU. The government there are bureaucratic and people there are not hard working.

Again, I am not trying to argue the tariff is justified. Just express some different opinions
 
chillfire said:
If these big tech were abusing their power, would that only happen in EU? I guess the answer is no. Then why didn't we see big fines on these big tech from other governments? My theory is that EU cant stop the services being used by the people there however they want to protect their not so competitive local business. They just invent some barriers to make it harder for these big techs taking more market shares. Those may not be tariffs by naming, however they serve the similar purposes. I admit I am very biased on EU. The government there are bureaucratic and people there are not hard working.

Again, I am not trying to argue the tariff is justified. Just express some different opinions
Click to expand...
I think the reasons Trump gives are arbitrary. He just wants tariffs and the why doesn't really matter. EU fines have nothing to do with tariffs.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
Does the white house know the difference between a chip and a wafer? Can TSMC send a wafer to AZ, package it, and make it a "Made in the USA" chip?
Click to expand...
No, at least on the AMD chip below, diffused in USA and diffused in Taiwan are both clearly labeled. Because there are multiple chips under the heat spreader. Assuming this is a standard industry practice, then the value-added from the fab in Taiwan and the value added from the fab in USA would potentially be taxed differently. And that's all a tariff is, a tax.

20250308_124045.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top