Taiwan is expected to avoid the brunt of US President Donald Trump’s wave of global import tariffs next week because the island’s top chipmaker has pledged billions of dollars in US investments, according to the assessments of two international financial institutions.
Analysts from ING and Morgan Stanley said in separate research reports that earlier pledges by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to invest in chip production in the US would probably soften Trump’s stance.
“It is possible that this high-profile announcement may have also brought Taiwan enough goodwill to soften or avert tariffs,” Dutch financial services corporation ING said in a Thursday research note. TSMC’s commitments, ING said, “have been frequently touted by members of Trump’s administration as a sign of success for tariffs”.
Nonetheless, Taiwan still falls under the 15 per cent of the world the Trump administration says has trade imbalances with the US, exposing it to a large-scale round of tariffs that are expected to resonate around the world on April 2.
Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US grew more than sevenfold from 2017 to US$64.9 billion last year, ING said. Hi-tech hardware exports, including chips, lead shipments to the US.
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