from Hacker News

Trump to impose 25% to 100% tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, impacting TSMC

by tlyleung on 1/28/25, 5:17 AM with 27 comments

  • by ggm on 1/28/25, 5:49 AM

    Isn't this inviting a rapprochement with the mainland?

    Not trying to be over dramatic about it, but given there is a persisting strand of belief inside the Taiwanese political community that unification ON THEIR TERMS is a thing, I would think at this point an unreliable US partner, who asks your principle worldwide income stream to relocate is .. not the friend you hoped for.

    The writing was on the wall when "make some of the chips onshore" happened, and now with packaging long line looping, the next logical step will be "do some of the packaging onshore" followed by "no packaging or fab from offshore"

    I wonder if the US government will next ask ASML holding to also open plants inside the continental USA? if I was the EU, I would consider very hard what a response would be.

    "we are witholding Novo-nordisk product from the USA until bilateral trade relationships return to normal" is unlikely I guess. as is "decent Brie will not be available in the USA for the forseeable future"

  • by Tadpole9181 on 1/28/25, 5:51 AM

    Someone talk me down here, genuinely.

    Combine this with the other tariffs, killing green manufacturing and the chips act and infrastructure bills, threatening our allies, a freeze on all federal grants and loans (a couple hours ago, if you aren't keeping up), etc... how does this not result in a total collapse of the US economy?

    Tech is a significant portion of our market. How could destroying our ability to source the most advanced hardware and driving a wedge in between a critical ally who literally cannot concede for their national security possibly lead to anything but a lack of trust or confidence in the US, increased costs, and a shrinking market for US tech?

  • by 11thEarlOfMar on 1/28/25, 6:02 AM

    TSMC has a fab starting up in Phoenix this year.

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/tsmc-arizona

  • by dzhiurgis on 1/28/25, 10:04 AM

    this gotta crash nvidia more than deepseek...
  • by hindsightbias on 1/28/25, 6:08 AM

    Fab ulous.

    Art of the deal, Xi must have agreed to wait until 2028.

    Next, tax free repriation of that $200B Apple has buried in Ireland to fund those fabs.

  • by k310 on 1/28/25, 4:29 PM

    Sometimes, threats are meant to squeeze a little payola out of the targets.

    Obviously not the case here. Ahem.

  • by abvdasker on 1/29/25, 3:49 AM

    Genuinely insane to the point that I don't believe he'll actually do it. I have no idea who this is for. It will certainly alienate the US tech sector that just spent the last month bending the knee to Trump. It will push Taiwan into the arms of China. I have no idea how this is remotely compatible with all the hawkish AI rhetoric. Baffling on all fronts.