US to Southeast Asian chipmakers: shift production to America or face ‘tariff solution’
Trump trade envoy Jamieson Greer stressed the importance of bringing chip supply chains ‘back to the US’ for national security reasons
Greer’s comments came as members of the regional bloc raced to secure better access to the world’s largest consumer market, after Washington imposed sweeping tariffs of between 10 and 40 per cent on a wide range of regional exports in August.
Washington’s trade envoy acknowledged Southeast Asia’s role as a key hub in the global semiconductor supply chain, but said national security concerns were driving the Trump administration’s consideration of additional sector-specific tariffs targeting chips.
“I think we want to be very careful and very thorough on how we address the international trade situation,” Greer told reporters after a bilateral meeting with Malaysia’s trade minister, Tengku Zafrul Aziz. “We have to have the supply chains back in the United States.”
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Malaysia’s Anwar slams US tariffs, calls for stronger inter-Asean trade
Three weeks earlier, US President Donald Trump warned that his administration would be “putting a tariff very shortly” on semiconductors made by companies that do not shift production to the US.