Trump: "If I Had Imposed Tariffs to Protect Intel, TSMC Would Have Become Intel's"

Reuters Yonhap News

On May 18 (local time), U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that if previous U.S. administrations had imposed tariffs to protect Intel, all of TSMC's business would have become Intel's.

In an interview with the U.S. business magazine Fortune on this day, President Trump stated, "If, during my presidency, companies had started importing chips from China, I would have imposed tariffs to protect Intel."

He then added, "If that had happened, Intel would now be the world's largest company," mentioning Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company. "Their business would all belong to Intel now, and Taiwan would not exist," he asserted.

These remarks were made in the context of explaining the process by which the U.S. government acquired a 10% stake in Intel last summer, when the American semiconductor company was struggling with management difficulties.

President Trump said that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who was facing challenges due to falling market share and massive debt, visited him and that, "When I told him to hand over 10% of Intel shares to the country for free, he said 'okay.'

The U.S. government's acquisition of a 10% stake in Intel was a condition for providing subsidies to Intel under the CHIPS Act (semiconductor law). At that time, the 10% stake in Intel was worth about 10 billion dollars.

During the Biden administration, in November 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would provide Intel with up to 7.865 billion dollars in direct funding to develop cutting-edge semiconductor capabilities and create tens of thousands of jobs. Including this, Intel was set to receive a total of 10.9 billion dollars in government subsidies.

Subsequently, under the Trump administration, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced attempts to secure a stake in Intel using subsidies under the CHIPS Act, and later, the Trump administration and Intel finalized the basic framework of the agreement.

President Trump said, "In just eight months, the value of the Intel shares held by the government grew to over 50 billion dollars," and asked, "Does anyone know that I did this? Am I getting the credit I deserve?"

President Trump also expressed pride in supporting technology companies such as Meta, the operator of Facebook and Instagram, to build power infrastructure capable of meeting computing demand. He claimed, "Because I allowed the construction of such facilities, we are well ahead of China in the field of artificial intelligence (AI)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.