Taipei, July 19 (CNA) Taiwan and the United States are important business partners, Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said Wednesday in response to former U.S. President Donald Trump saying Taiwan took away semiconductor business from the United States.
Many major clients of Taiwan's semiconductor suppliers come from the U.S., and Taiwanese chip manufacturers buy equipment from U.S. suppliers, Wang said.
"So Taiwan and the United States have become important business partners, instead of rivals," Wang told reporters on the sidelines of a hearing at the Legislative Yuan.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump was asked whether the U.S. should help defend Taiwan if it means going to war with China.
Trump did not answer because he did not want to tip his hand on what he would do should he be president again.
"If I answer that question, it'd put me in a very bad negotiating position," he said, but then pivoted to the business angle.
"With that being said, Taiwan did take all of our chip business. We used to make our own chips. Now they're made in Taiwan," he said.
"Remember this. Taiwan took -- smart, brilliant -- they took our business away. We should have stopped them. We should have taxed them. We should have tariffed them," Trump said.
Trump's comments drew widespread attention in Taiwanese media, with some suggesting he was hinting that he would not come to Taiwan's defense in case of an attack, and others saying he would restrict bilateral trade in semiconductors.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs decided to defend Taiwan's role in the semiconductor supply chain to counter Trump's view that it "took" the U.S.' business away.
Wang said the U.S. has repeatedly said Taiwan was its important partner as both sides have built close business ties, including their partnership in the semiconductor industry.
The semiconductor industry has a complicated and diversified supply chain in which every country has its own role to play to make the industry prosperous, she said.
The U.S., for example, plays a big role in the advanced IC design and semiconductor equipment markets, while Japan and Europe are good at semiconductor raw materials and equipment, respectively, she said.
Taiwan has specialized in the pure wafer foundry and IC packaging and testing businesses, with about 90 percent of high-end chips rolled out from Taiwan.
Jackson Hu, a former chairman and CEO of United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), had a more succinct response to Trump's comments.
"Trump is completely ignorant about the semiconductor industry," Hu was quoted as saying by Digitimes Asia.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said Taiwan and the U.S. mutually benefit from bilateral trade as both sides have a consensus to push for such a relation, citing the signing of an initial agreement on the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade on June 1 as an example.
