On September 24, The Wall Street Journal reported: The White House is studying strict regulations for all chips sold in the United States (whether in smartphones, cars, or electric toothbrushes) — 50% must be produced in the U.S., and only half can be imported.
If this requirement is not met? Tariffs will apply, up to 100%.
Upon hearing this news, Silicon Valley was in an uproar. Apple first checked its own resources, Dell counted the laptops in its warehouse, and even TSMC instinctively checked the factory blueprints in its pocket: Is my large Arizona factory enough to meet half of the requirement?
If we were to chart the semiconductor journey in Washington over the past few years, it would resemble an electrocardiogram with three sharp spikes:
① 2020: Chokehold — “No EUV sales, don’t even think about anything above 14nm.”
② 2022: Table Shift — “$52.7 billion, I’ll reward whoever brings production back to the U.S.”
③ 2025: Weighing Scale — “Regardless of how sweet the rewards are, half must be produced in the U.S., or face taxes for every gram short.”
In short, the focus has shifted from “technological leadership” to “quantitative parity.”
Technology can be pursued gradually, but quantity is a hard constraint.
The former is science, while the latter is accounting.
When scientists start using an abacus, things get surreal.
Let’s do a quick calculation for Apple:
An iPhone 15 Pro contains about 200 chips, sourced from six countries, dozens of wafer fabs, and various levels of packaging and testing. In the past, Apple only asked two questions: Is the performance sufficient? Can we lower the price?
Now they will have to fill out an additional form:
Where was the birth certificate for this power management chip issued?
Where was that TOF sensor wrapped in its cleanroom?
If the statistician makes a mistake and the import ratio drops from 50.1% to 49.9%, the entire shipment will be recalculated at a 100% tariff, and Cook will likely have to turn the plane around overnight, keeping the cargo in the air until it meets the “nationality” requirement.
In-flight refueling is expensive, but the “chip residency” is even more costly.
Spring has arrived for companies like TSMC:
Are clients lining up to treat us to meals?
While some are worried, others are secretly pleased.
In the Arizona desert, TSMC’s factory is still under construction, but the phone lines are already buzzing; Micron, GlobalFoundries, and Intel are also riding the wave, with sales teams working overnight to revise their presentations;clients are signing contracts while cursing.
That’s how the world works; some write eulogies for globalization, while others sell those eulogies by the pound.
The abacus is clattering loudly, but the opponent is physics.
Trump’s MAGA ideal: Within three years, U.S. domestic production capacity will double, with a 50-50 split between domestic and imported.
Physical reality:
1. A 5nm fab takes at least three years from construction to mass production, assuming no pandemics or shareholder disputes arise.
2. The cost of construction, electricity, and skilled labor in the U.S. starts at 30% higher than in Taiwan, ultimately adding to chip prices, with a $100 increase in the final smartphone price being considered modest.
3. If tariffs are truly raised to 100%, the price of imported chips will double, domestic chip prices will rise accordingly, and consumers will bear the cost.
Let’s not forget that inflation is still a looming issue…
When “security” becomes a number, efficiency becomes a sacrifice.
Washington’s strategists have certainly done the math, but they are more afraid of another calculation — if there’s a disturbance in the Taiwan Strait, 90% of the U.S.’s advanced logic chips will be cut off, and Apple, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA will all come to a halt.
Rather than gamble on “maybe nothing will happen,” it’s better to “pay a little more.”
Thus, “security” is translated into Arabic numerals: 50.0% — no more than 0.1, and no less than 0.1.
It’s both casually charming and frighteningly precise.
In the era of globalization, we are accustomed to explaining everything with the phrase “comparative advantage”; in the post-globalization era, people just want to cage “uncertainty,” even if the key is tariffs.
The news is still in the “consideration” stage, but the market has already voted early: On the A-share side,semiconductor equipment stocks are rising, foundry stocks are rising, while Apple and Dell are falling, and consumers are quietly postponing their upgrade plans by a year —if the plan is truly implemented, the world will split in two:
One half of the wafer fabs will be busy slapping “Made in USA” labels;
the other half of the supply chain companies will be practicing the magic of “origin disaggregation.”
And the real winners may be those making traceability software and printing labels.