Taiwan chipmaker plans $100 billion investment in U.S. plants
Posted By: The Detroit News on March 3, 2025. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest $100 billion in the United States, President Donald Trump said Monday, on top of $65 billion in investments the company had previously announced.
TSMC, the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer, produces chips for companies including Apple, Intel and Nvidia. The company had already begun constructing three plants in Arizona after the Biden administration offered billions in subsidies. Its first factory in Arizona has started mass production of its 4-nanometer chips.
Trump, who appeared with TSMC’s chief executive officer C. C. Wei at the White House, called it a “tremendous move” and “a matter of economic security.”
“Semiconductors are the backbone of the 21st century economy. And really, without the semiconductors, there is no economy,” the president said. “Powering everything from AI to automobiles to advanced manufacturing, we must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here in American factories with Americans skill and American labor.”
Wei said the investment will be for three more chip manufacturing plants, along with two packaging facilities, in Arizona.
The $165 billion investment “is going to create thousands of high-paying jobs,” Wei said.
TSMC’s new investments will still need approval from Taiwan’s government. Taiwanese officials have said they will prudently review outbound investments in advanced chip tech. A presidential spokesman did not answer calls outside of regular office hours.
Monday’s announcement came as Trump weighs weighs tariffs against a wide range of industries — including semiconductors, lumber, autos and pharmaceuticals — to address what he sees as global trade imbalances that hurt the United States. Levies on chips would hit hard in Taiwan, where nearly 90% of the world’s most advanced wafers, especially those used in artificial intelligence, are made.
Trump has repeatedly accused Taiwan of “stealing” the U.S. semiconductor industry and threatened tariffs on foreign-produced chips, as top U.S. officials have consistently affirmed their commitment to boosting domestic manufacturing. That’s particularly true for technologies at the heart of the U.S.-China competition.
The president has expressed a preference for using tariffs to boost U.S. chipmaking instead of government subsidies, the approach favored under former President Joe Biden, who pushed for passage of the Chips and Science Act to revive the domestic industry. That legislation, signed in 2022, led to TSMC winning $6.6 billion in grants to support three plants in Phoenix.
Trump administration officials have also approached TSMC about possibly taking a controlling stake in Intel Corp.’s factories, Bloomberg News reported previously. Those talks remain in the early stages but the move is aimed at addressing concerns about Intel’s deteriorating financial state, which has forced it to slash jobs and curb global expansion plans.
During Trump’s first term, his administration lured TSMC to the United States partly out of national security concerns. When TSMC first announced its investments in an advanced plant in the United States in 2020, Trump officials at the time said chips made by the Taiwanese chipmaker in Arizona would power everything from artificial intelligence to F-35 fighter jets.
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