In the end, only the customer pays extras.
Trumpets cannot comprehend this
They will first go “I don’t buy those damn consoles and gamer PCs every few years”, then find out once their new iPhones will be much more expensive…
Everything will be more expensive, if it uses a modern CPU. Phones, tablets, computers of any type from any company (both Intel and AMD are fabbing consumer CPUs on TSMC, as is Apple and Qualcomm), TVs, set top boxes, everything.
Right now TSMC is basically the only fab anything consumer-facing is made on, which is not a great thing in general, but vice president trump just decided that anything electronic needs a hefty price hike.
And remember, once the price goes up, it rarely goes down. Even after the tariffs reverted in the future.
There was a time…
They seem to like cars a lot. Remember when there was a car shortage because chip manufacturing froze during Covid?
He emphasized that the proposed tariffs would leave companies with no choice but to invest in domestic production facilities to avoid high taxes.
No choice except the obvious: Pass the cost of the Tax into the customer because there’s no way they’re going to spend billions to stand up a US fab plant anytime soon.
More so when these plants take 10 years to build. They will pass along the cost and just wait him out.
No choice except the obvious: Pass the cost of the Tax into the customer because there’s no way they’re going to spend billions to stand up a US fab plant anytime soon.
TSMC is standing up fabs in the US, mostly because we’re bribing them to do so.
The problem is that it takes literal years to build high tech manufacturing and isn’t something you can yank out of your ass to satisfy some idiot politician.
By Taiwanese law, TSMC isn’t allowed to move cutting edge processes to its US plant. The overseas operations have to be at least one gen behind.
From a strategic point of view, it makes sense for the Taiwan government to do this. They don’t want the US to suck them dry then cut a deal with the mainland.
I mean, it’s economic blackmail: we won’t build the good shit anywhere else, so if you don’t protect us, you get nothing.
Effective, but only if you’re dealing with someone who is rational, and, well, have you seen the brain-worm oligarchs in charge of the US lately?
For Taiwan, it’s a matter of survival, plain and simple. They’re not going to give up their monopoly because without it they cease to exist. It does not matter how irrational the person they’re dealing with is, because for them this is life and death, literally. TSMC is the single biggest national security asset they have.
Also, because these investments are long-term when the tariffs are likely to only be short term.
Yeah but what corporation is going to think of the obvious solution?
That’s just how tariffs work. They’re not a weapon against enemy nations. They’re a tax on Americans.
And nobody is going to bring production back to this fascist slave pen of a country.
Oh man, Trump…I had this thing I wanted to give you…where did I put it…oh yeah…🖕
Is that Roman salute?
Looks like an American salute to me.
One finger victory salute
OP needs a second to make it American.
lol I’ve always heard it as the sailor salute
So, US is finally getting EU hardware prices
Probably Aussie hardware prices at this rate.
Can the fat fuck die from a coronary already?
Look at Henry Kissinger. If left to nature, Trump will live to be 120.
I hate it that you’re so right about this.
Isn’t the 2A to bring down tyrant governments?
indeed, so please stop beating the 1a to death and use your 2a to do something
What is 2a?
I think it will not solve the problem. Look, 70 million Americans voted for felon
Awesome! Send them to Canada, we can build data centres and sell the cloud services back to Americans powered by the electricity that we expect to be tarriffed, and cooled by the water we won’t sell.
Or Mexico! We’re already on it. Sheinbaum is working to get a chip manufacturing plant up in Guadalajara. Exciting stuff, honestly.
And in two weeks there will be a special executive order to free his Tech Bro oligarch buddies from these tarrifs so Meta and Elmo are not forced to pay a dollar extra.
If TSMC doesn’t want to set up shop in the USA, are the USA going to be able to produce chips on par with what TSMC can fab?
they are building a plant in Arizona, but i doubt it’ll ever be as good as Taiwan can do, not just because Taiwan has the skills but if Taiwan doesn’t have this then what’s the point of protecting it? It’s sort of a way to say, if you want to to continue to access the best chips in the world you should protect us from China
Taiwan are very clear about this; they (correctly) consider their monopoly on high end chip manufacturing to be an urgent matter of national defence and it is of the highest priority to them to keep it solely within Taiwan. They will never allow their best processes to be exported.
TSMC have advanced chip fabrication factory in Arizona in the US.
“TSMC will produce 3nm chips in the U.S., and Taiwan has already given TSMC the go-signal to manufacture 2nm chips abroad.”
But it cannot produce the higher end chips. That was explicitly part of the agreement when they built the facility. They’re only willing to fab low end product outside of Taiwan.
I was being very specific when I said “their best processes.”
I wouldn’t say 5nm and 3nm are low end
Sure, “low end” wasn’t a perfectly scientifically accurate way to describe it. I apologize for my terrible lack of academic rigor.
The point is that they’re not going to let their highest end processes be replicated outside of Taiwan. Or, rather, the Taiwanese government is not going to let that happen, because fear of losing access to that technology is their one bargaining chip with the West. Without that, they cease to exist as a country. There just isn’t enough incentive for anyone to risk a war with China otherwise.
Totally agree that it’s a sound strategy to keep their latest and greatest on home soil. At the same time they are starting to implement tooling for important parts of clients designs like
Core chiplets for Ryzen
iPhone SOCs
OK. It is ahistorical and hyperbolic to say they may never do that. They also have their fabs i n Taiwan rigged to self destruct if they get invaded. They are setting up shop in a different country. As fab dies shrink they get harder to make, they are building expertise somewhere else in case.
It’s already fabbing chips
People downvoting you can’t do a quick search:
TSMC is absolutely up and running already in the US.
Yeah I know, talking a lot of blowhard talk. Chip die size was the arbitrary argument, but again, that just takes time. They are hedging their bet with a supposed ally with China being their big threat.
"TSMC will produce 3nm chips in the U.S., and Taiwan has already given TSMC the go-signal to manufacture 2nm chips abroad. "
I believe the plant is operational, as they have bragged about “great production tests”. What I haven’t heard of is any orders placed for that plant’s products.
The US could probably do it… With hundreds of billions of government incentives to rapidly stand up the entire supply chain… Which would still take at least a decade. The machines that TSMC uses are made by ASML and themselves have a global supply chain of over 500 separate companies and are backordered for several years due to their inherent value.
In short, no.
Intel has been trying to get itself into that position for years, with huge amounts of public money being pumped in, and it is struggling so badly the company lost patience and fired the CEO who had the best chance of getting this done. And, as others have said, it doesn’t look like TSMC is about to let its US fabs do the most advanced stuff even if they could.
So this move will just make the best technology less accessible to the USA and tech products more expensive for Americans, for the foreseeable future.
From what I understand one of the things that is protecting Taiwan from China is their fabs. They will fight for their lives to make sure they are protected by this.
As someone with family over in Taiwan, I really want them to be okay. Things are getting depressing globally.
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So where is the US going to get its chips from then tax TMSC makes over 90% of chips?
TSMC was supposed to open a plant in the US, but apparently that takes a bit of time to get running.
I thought the US FAB was also going to be a generation behind?
Correct. Taiwan considers it a matter of national security to never allow their best processes to be exported. That monopoly is why Taiwan still exists.
They did say American worker is lazy and expects highest pay lol
Cry me a fucking river. This corpo really forgot who defends their precious island. American tax payer spends good money in your support. Show some fucking respect.
The US gets an unsinkable aircraft off the coast of PRC, while Taiwan assumes all the risks of a war with PRC. If anything the US should show some respects to its allies instead of treating them like disposable pawns.
Just to be clear, we do not guve a shit about : China, Taiwan, All of South east Asia, Ukraine, Russia, All of Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Iran, all of MENA
You people are all own your own, stop embroilling us in your god damned fucking wars.
The US definitely doesn’t give a shit about all those countries.
But my take is the US is doing it so that it can continue its global dominance. Russia or China will happily take its place if the US relents. Are you willing to take a backseat to China or Russia? Doubtful.
Eventually humanity will rid itself of the imperial disease. Or perish.
In the mean time, it is better US (United States) than THEM (The Hegemony of Evil Manchurians)
Sir, I am not “the US”, i am USian pedon, merely a subject, speaking on my own behalf.
Maybe I’m misreading because one poster above deleted their comment, but I can’t understand: how exactly has TSMC shown “disrespect”? Or was the poster showing disrespect?
Putting corporations aside and speaking of states: the US and Taiwan have respectful and friendly relations. They depend on each other.
Now, a tariff of 25-100% on a partner’s primary export and one’s own vitally important import is more like putting a shotgun to one’s leg out of spite. It would be hurting oneself and hurting the other side - and not a little bit.
The US is a store that Taiwan frequently shops in - a very big defense equipment store, I should say. Some of the toys cost money, but if you buy enough, you get kickbacks - the US gives Taiwan some security assistance for free. It also says it will assist Taiwan if anyone (we can imagine who that might be) attacks it.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is a store the world frequently shops in - a very big microprocessor, memory and microcontroller store. Frequent customers can tell TSMC “it would be nice if you brought some of your business here, we have a vacant spot suitable for your plans”. And it works: one factory will be built in the US, one factory in the EU. Maybe elsewhere too. Getting that to happen didn’t need Trump or insane levels of customs tariffs.
To achieve that, people just negotiated like normal people do. TMSC know they operate in a country prone to violent earthquakes and close to an agressive neighbour, they are quite OK with placing some of their business abroad.
I am a US worker and TSMC execs spoke shit about the US workers and said we get paid too much.
I am expected to tolerate such behavior from a foreign corpo parasite when my taxes are spent to defend them?
Y’all, can’t conceptualize the separation here lol
TSMC execs spoke shot a our the user workers uhhh…what?
Typo Fixed
That’s weird, I see it’s been edited but there’s no “been edited” icon next to it.
deleted by creator
What a goddamn dumb fuck
But I thought the Tim Apple donation to the trump inauguration was supposed to curry enough favor to avoid this.
ThisIsMySurpisedFace.jpg.
I don’t get the goal here. It’s not just that existing fabs are in Taiwan, I thought it was the knowledge was as well.
I was under the impression that we’d built a couple of fabs here and they’re not productive due to a knowledge deficit. Maybe I’m uninformed.
It seems, to my uninformed self, that if we impose tariffs we’d be strengthening Taiwan/China relations. Wouldn’t China still serve as a middle man?
I don’t see us manufacturing when the dollar is so high relative to foreign currency; add in the lack of knowledge and facilities and I’m not sure what you get.
I truly believe these are his way of soliciting bribes from foreign and domestic businesses.
They’re going to have to pay him to get around them.
Trump is a chinese puppet apparently
How to reunite China and Taiwan 101
Peace in our time, what a great deal maker!
To avoid this, the administration would need to introduce exemptions, just like it did with China-made graphics cards and motherboards years ago.
If that is the approach, it would ensure tech monopoly for 5 years for all of the oligarchy that kisses his diaper.
More major issues with this is that while high end Chip production may be high value manufacturing, motherboards, electronics, and assembly is not, and there would likely be an export of chips to somewhere else to import finished products.
US/Trump explicit hatred for world is likely to get retributive tariffs, that makes chip plants unproductive investments, though Trump is hoping to have high foreign ownership/investment in those plants.
In 2022, the export share of Taiwan integrated circuits to US was just 2.46%, although in early 2024, total (all goods) Taiwan exports had US take lead over China for the first time.
That both US and China are decoupling from Taiwan is going to reduce any geopolitical subservience impulse that provokes a war with China. Taiwan may get closer to China instead of begging for more US “friendship”.
