Will TSMC be fined more than $1 billion?
Earlier on April 8, local time, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter, that TSMC may face a fine of $1 billion or more to resolve a US investigation into its indirect violation of export control policies for Chinese companies to manufacture AI chips.
According to the report, a Chinese enterprise has manufactured nearly 3 million AI chips in TSMC through third-party violations, but TSMC did not find it in time. This also makes TSMC in indirect violation of US export control policies.
TSMC faces a potential fine of more than $1 billion for violating export control policies, the sources said. The regulation allows for fines of up to twice the value of the transaction for violations.
It is worth noting that the subsequent Reuters report also revealed the key reason for TSMC's additional $100 billion investment in the United States: US President Donald Trump said that he told the world's leading wafer foundry TSMC that if it does not build a factory in the United States, the company's products will need to pay up to 100% tariffs into the United States.
In late January this year, at a meeting of Republican members of Congress, Trump announced in his speech that he intended to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper and computer chips, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and other goods imported to the United States, and said that chip manufacturing had gone to Taiwan, China, and he hoped that these industries would return to the United States.
Trump also criticized former President Joe Biden's administration for providing $6.6 billion in subsidies to TSMC for its wafer fab project in Phoenix, Arizona. "We don't want to give them billions of dollars like the ridiculous plan that Joe Biden put in place," Trump said. "They don't need money, they need incentives. And the incentive is that they don't want to pay 25 percent, 50 percent, 100 percent tariffs. They built the factory with their own money, we don't have to give them money, and even if we give them money, we don't know what [they] would do with it." If you want to stop paying high tariffs, you have to build factories in the United States.
Then in March of this year, TSMC Chairman Wei Che-jia joined Trump at the White House to announce plans for $100 billion in new investments in the United States, including three new advanced process fabs and two new advanced packaging and a research and development center in the next few years.
Trump later proudly said: "I did not give TSMC any money... I'm just saying, if you don't build here, you're going to have to pay a big tax."
Apparently, Trump has threatened TSMC before, telling them that if they do not continue to invest in the United States to build factories, their chips into the United States will need to pay up to 100% tariffs. This also directly forced TSMC to subsequently announce plans to invest an additional $100 billion in the United States.
