Reuters, MANASSAS, Virginia
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Friday said there were no imminent new US tariffs expected to be imposed on semiconductors, but that it was important to protect the sector with duties to facilitate reshoring of chip production.Greer, speaking at a Micron Technology Inc chip plant expansion project in Washington, said that any tariffs from the long-awaited Section 232 national security investigation aimed at protecting the US semiconductor sector needed to be properly sequenced to promote US output.“Having tariffs on semiconductors is really important. What’s even more important than having protection for facilities like this is making sure we do it on the right timing and in the right amount,” Greer said.
A wafer sample is displayed during the Semicon China semiconductor exhibition in Shanghai on March 25.
“There was not an immediate tariff coming,” he said.In January, US President Donald Trump’s administration said the US manufactures only about 10 percent of the chips it requires, making it heavily reliant on foreign supply chains.
“These are complex supply chains. We’ve seen offshoring of semiconductors for decades,” Greer said.The government wants to ensure there are no immediate tariffs on companies that are producing semiconductors, and would allow companies to import an unspecified amount during that “reshoring phase,” he added.In June last year, Micron said it was expanding its US investments by US$30 billion.The supplier of memory chips said its planned investments would total US$200 billion.Micron on Friday said it had begun 1-alpha DRAM wafer manufacturing in Manassas, Virginia, of the most advanced memory chip produced in the US.DRAM chips are used in PCs, cars, industrial operations, wireless communications and artificial intelligence, and Micron’s high-bandwidth memory is critical for enabling new AI models.In December 2024, the US Department of Commerce under former US president Joe Biden finalized a nearly US$6.2 billion government subsidy for Micron to produce semiconductors in New York and Idaho, one of the largest government awards to chip companies under the US$52.7 billion 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
