It would be “impossible” to move 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor capacity to the U.S., the island’s top tariff negotiator said, pushing back against recent comments by American officials who called for a major production shift.
In an interview with Taiwanese television channel CTS that was broadcast late on Sunday, Taiwan Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said she had made it clear to Washington that Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem, built up over decades, could not be relocated.
“I have made it very clear to the United States that this is impossible,” she said, referring to the 40% goal the U.S. has floated.
That ecosystem will continue to grow in Taiwan, Cheng said, adding that the semiconductor industry would keep investing at home.


I meant we could occupy them like we occupied Iraq. We would win the military confrontation. The occupation would break us.
We could do it once, maybe twice or three times if the countries are small and weak, but it would break us. The rest of the world would adjust. We would all be poorer but the US would be fucked. Trump doesn’t understand that we built a military too expensive to actually use. It made sense if we wanted to avoid conflict, and casualties, while still being top dog and getting our way, but actually going in and occupying territory is medieval thinking.