More Than Tariffs: The Political Economy Behind TSMC’s U.S. Expansion

[karin623]

TSMC’s expanding footprint in the United States is frequently described as a reaction to tariffs or geopolitical pressure from Washington. This reading, however, risks oversimplifying a far more complex reality.

Based on reporting from Taiwan’s science parks, accounts from former TSMC executives, and recent developments in Arizona, this article argues that TSMC’s overseas expansion reflects a negotiated political economy rather than a straightforward act of compliance.

What looks like geopolitics is, in practice, shaped by capacity constraints, pricing power, regulatory trade-offs, and a carefully sequenced alignment of interests between governments and a company that has become indispensable to the global semiconductor industry.

https://cwnewsroom.substack.com/p/more-than-tariffs-the-political-economy-behind-tsmc-us-expansion