When TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) stood beside President Donald Trump at the White House in March 2025 to announce an additional $100 billion U.S. investment commitment, the moment captured something important about Taiwan's position in global technology: enormous economic presence, minimal political voice.
That announcement brought TSMC's cumulative U.S. investment to $165 billion — a twelvefold increase from the $12 billion it first pledged for Arizona in May 2020. Taiwan's broader commitment to the United States, formalized in the Taiwan-U.S. reciprocal trade agreement signed in February 2026, totals $250 billion in investment pledges, with TSMC accounting for roughly two-thirds of that figure. By any measure, Taiwan has made a massive financial bet on its relationship with Washington.
But betting money and building political relationships are two different things. And on the latter count, Taiwan's tech sector is dangerously behind.
Taiwan's Seat at the Table
Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a former at-large legislator and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, has watched this gap widen for years. In an interview with Storm Media, he described a recurring pattern: when he meets with officials at the Commerce Department or sits down with members of Congress, the same observation comes up again and again.
"They tell me, 'Japan and South Korea send people to see us every day — their governments, their companies,'" Hsu said. "'But we never see Taiwanese companies. They only show up when there's a negotiation."
The contrast in formal lobbying is stark. Samsung Group alone maintains roughly 150 people working on government and congressional relations in Washington. TSMC, Taiwan's most internationally prominent company, has five. Japan's major trading houses maintain Washington offices, and Keidanren — Japan's main business federation — sends delegations to think tanks like the Hudson Institute three or four times a year, regularly bringing Japanese company executives with them. Dutch chipmaking equipment giant ASML stations six to seven full-time staff in Washington and sends vice president-level executives every quarter.
Washington Has Changed
Part of what makes Taiwan's absence more consequential now is how Washington itself has changed. Since Trump's return to office, the U.S. capital has become the convergence point for technology, capital, and policy in a way it never was before.
"Silicon Valley's AI executives and investors are in Washington every day trying to get meetings with Trump's people," Hsu said. "Taiwan has played a contract manufacturing role for so long — it's genuinely unfamiliar with being on the front line of political engagement."
He noted that Taiwanese companies have historically left U.S. government relations to their brand-name clients, staying deliberately invisible. That model, he argues, is no longer viable. With tariffs, export controls, and semiconductor policy all being shaped in Washington, the consequences of political absence can arrive faster than they can be addressed from Taipei.
"By the time a decision reaches Taiwan, you're already on the menu," Hsu said. "You're not at the table."
The Samsung Playbook
Kirk Yang (楊應超), chairman of Kirkland Capital and a close observer of the U.S. tech industry, sees the lobbying gap as both a risk and an opportunity. Speaking at a public forum in Taipei in September 2024, he pointed to Intel as an illustration of what effective government relations can yield: the chipmaker spent approximately $3 million on lobbying and received $3 billion in CHIPS Act subsidies — a thousandfold return.
"That is an extraordinary investment," Yang said.
He also highlighted what he considers Samsung's most underappreciated advantage: the company recruits Korean Americans — people born and raised in the United States — sends them to Seoul for five years of training in Korean culture, language, and corporate practice, then deploys them back to the U.S.
"They're bilingual, bicultural," Yang said. "They can walk into any agency or lobbying circle and fit right in. That's the real edge." He suggested TSMC, which excels technically but is less experienced in geopolitics and diplomacy, could learn from this approach. "They're improving — credit where it's due. But they still have ground to make up."
Show Up, or Lose Out
Hsu's prescription goes beyond TSMC. He calls on Taiwan's major tech companies — including semiconductor firms like MediaTek, the so-called "Big Five" contract manufacturers (Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Pegatron, and Inventec), and industry associations — to establish permanent Washington presences, modeled on what Japanese and South Korean peers have done for decades.
Critically, he argues that information-gathering alone is not enough. "I've seen a lot of Taiwanese representatives in Washington who only collect information," Hsu said. "If your decision-makers aren't the ones walking in the door, it has no effect."
For companies not yet ready to open offices, he recommends at minimum sending senior executives with actual decision-making authority to Washington every quarter.
The stakes, he argues, are strategic as well as commercial. U.S. government agencies typically conduct one or two rounds of industry consultation before finalizing major policy decisions. Without a presence in Washington, Taiwan's companies — and by extension, Taiwan's interests — are simply not part of that conversation.
"Taiwan matters enormously in Washington right now," Hsu said. "Every room is talking about Taiwan. But there's almost never a Taiwanese representative actually in the room. I often end up being the only one who understands the Taiwan side. That can't be the answer."
