Americans could soon be hit with a price hike for sought-after electronics as President Trump pushes the idea of tariffs on foreign production of computer chips.
President Trump is looking to implement tariffs on foreign production of semiconductors and computer chips in all forms in an effort to bring manufacturing of these components to American soil. The idea behind the tariffs, which could range between 25 and 100% tax, is to force foreign manufacturers to either pay the exorbitant fee to import their goods or choose to manufacture their products on American soil. However, there is a third option, and that involves foreign manufacturers increasing the price of their products, which essentially means consumers will have to pay for Trump's import tax.
In Trump's crosshairs with these tariffs are Taiwanese semiconducting manufacturer TSMC and South Korean giant Samsung, which produces various computing products such as CPUs, GPUs, storage, and memory modules. Notably, TSMC and Samsung have agreed to build fabrication plants in the US, but TSMC has been somewhat hesitant to manufacture its cutting-edge technologies on US soil and instead opts for those advanced chips to be manufactured in Taiwan. Unfortunately, companies such as Apple, NVIDIA, and others are only really interested in TSMC's best offerings.

"In the very near future, we are going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America," said President Trump
"The incentive is going to be they're not going to want to pay a 25, 50, or even a 100 percent tax," added Trump
"Taiwan and the U.S. semiconductor and other technology industries are highly complementary to each other, especially the U.S.-designed, Taiwan-foundry model, which creates a win-win business model for Taiwan and U.S. industries," Taiwan's economy ministry said in a statement
The ministry added it "will continue to pay attention to U.S. policy going forward, and there will be close contact and cooperation between the two sides to ensure that Taiwan's and U.S.' industries and national interests can develop in a mutually beneficial way in the face of global challenges".
Taiwan's presidential official said in a separate statement the relationship between the US and Taiwan involves "good mutual trust and a close relationship," and advanced chip manufacturing between the two nations is a "win-win situation".