onsdag 24. juli 2024

Trump says Taiwan stole America’s chip industry. But that’s not true

Former US President Donald Trump raised eyebrows last week when he accused Taiwan of snatching America’s crown in the $500 billion business of making computer chips. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, the Republican presidential nominee repeated his assertion, first made last year, that the island democracy and US ally had taken “almost 100%” of the industry from the United States. “We should have never let that happen,” he added.

Except, it didn’t. Industry experts tell CNN that, far from stealing, Taiwan grew its own semiconductor industry organically through a combination of foresight, hard work and investment. School children on the island know that the father of its world-beating chips sector is Morris Chang, a 93-year-old Chinese-born American, who started Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) in 1987 at age 55 after a long career working with semiconductors in the US.