When U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly accuses Taiwan of "stealing" America's semiconductor industry, the appropriate response from Taipei is clear rebuttal. Instead, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) called it "the reality of international politics" — a non-answer that amounts to tacit acceptance of a damaging falsehood.
Taiwan did not steal anything. In 1976, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) paid $3.5 million — an enormous sum for the Taiwan of that era, essentially a national bet — for a legitimate ten-year technology transfer agreement with the American company RCA. Taiwan sent its engineers to the United States to learn. It then spent the next half-century building what it had legally acquired into the world's most sophisticated semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. The United States sold the seed willingly. Taiwan grew the tree.
That history matters, because Trump's claim is not merely inaccurate — it is a moral and historical accusation that, left unanswered, will harden into received wisdom in Washington. And Taipei's silence is helping it do exactly that.
Trumps Three Claims About Taiwan — and What They Reveal
Trump returns repeatedly to three propositions about Taiwan: that it is wealthy and should pay for American protection; that it stole the U.S. semiconductor industry; and that it is too far away for the United States to defend effectively. All three reflect the transactional, America-first logic that defines his approach to alliances. He has described arms sales to Taiwan as "negotiating leverage" and referred to President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) not as a president but as "the man who governs Taiwan."
These are not casual slips. They form a consistent rhetorical pattern — one that demotes Taiwan from partner to supplicant, and from ally to liability.
When legislators pressed Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) to respond more forcefully, he offered only that Trump's characterization was "unfair and inaccurate." When legislators pushed further — asking why the foreign ministry could not place corrective advertisements in major U.S. newspapers — officials from the ministry's North American division replied that their public diplomacy budget had been cut to zero.
United Microelectronics Corporation founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) put the failure plainly: "Neither the Taiwan government nor TSMC has offered any clarification to date. This dereliction of duty is extremely serious."
He is right. The Lai administration confronts Beijing with firmness and pushes back against diplomatic setbacks elsewhere. But when Washington repeats a falsehood about Taiwan's founding industrial achievement, the government goes quiet. That asymmetry is as damaging as the silence itself.
Taiwan Built What Made U.S. Tech Giants Dominant. That Is Not Theft.
Taiwan's contribution to the global semiconductor industry was not imitation — it was invention. Taiwan pioneered the pure-play foundry model: a manufacturing-focused business that serves clients without competing against them. That strategic choice created the trusted, neutral infrastructure on which Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm built their global dominance. Taiwan did not take American jobs. It built the foundation that allowed American technology companies to lead the world.
The economic record today reflects that contribution directly. According to the latest U.S. Commerce Department data, American imports from Taiwan have for the first time exceeded those from China — driven by AI-related demand for chips and servers, and accelerated by the tariff shifts Trump himself introduced. Taiwan's total economic output is approaching $1 trillion, making it one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Taiwan's stock market capitalization has surpassed India's, reaching $4.95 trillion and ranking fifth globally, behind only the United States, China, Japan, and Hong Kong — propelled largely by TSMC's extraordinary growth.
Against this backdrop, the accusation that Taiwan is a thief is not just false. It is absurd. Yet absurdity, repeated often enough and left unchallenged, acquires the weight of fact.
Allowing This Lie to Stand Carries Concrete Policy Risks for Taiwan
Some former U.S. national security officials have suggested that rather than arguing over whether Taiwan "stole" the semiconductor industry, Taipei should emphasize its willingness to help the United States become the next-generation semiconductor superpower. That framing has strategic merit — but it is not mutually exclusive with correcting the historical record. Taiwan can do both, and it must.
The stakes of inaction are real. Washington is already pressuring Taiwan to relocate its most advanced manufacturing to American soil, invoking economic security as justification. As that pressure intensifies, Taiwan's so-called "silicon shield" — the strategic deterrence value of being indispensable to global chip supply — grows thinner. If the narrative accompanying that process is one in which, Taiwan was always a predator rather than a partner, the political cost of resistance rises sharply.
TSMC and Taiwan's broader supply chain are already committing enormous investment to U.S. operations. In March 2025, Trump stood in the White House alongside TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) to announce an additional $100 billion investment in American facilities. Yet even as that announcement was made, the "chip thief" rhetoric continued. Washington is, in effect, taking Taiwan's supply chain with one hand while branding Taiwan a thief with the other.
Taiwan Must Stop Absorbing the Lie and Start Correcting the Record
A false claim repeated a thousand times becomes, for many, an established truth. "Taiwan stole America's chip industry" has already migrated from Trump's improvised remarks into a recurring theme in Washington political discourse. If it is not actively countered, it will eventually shape policy — setting the terms for trade negotiations, technology restrictions, and the broader bilateral relationship in ways that Taiwan will find very difficult to reverse.
The message Taipei needs to deliver — to American policymakers, media, and the broader public — is straightforward: Taiwan has never stolen anything. The technology that became TSMC and the broader semiconductor ecosystem was legally purchased, at great cost, nearly fifty years ago. What Taiwan built from that foundation has served American industry, American consumers, and American strategic interests ever since.
Trump's "chip thief" accusation is not a loose comment to be politely overlooked. It is a distortion of history and a slander against an ally — one that carries real strategic consequences if allowed to stand. Dismissing it as "the reality of international politics," as Premier Cho has done, is not realism. It is a failure of duty. Taiwan's government needs to say so, clearly and publicly, before the lie becomes the policy.
Original Article in Chinese
