The US May Make It Illegal for TSMC to Sell Parts to Huawei Without a License
Summary
Reportedly, the US may put pressure on companies like TSMC to stop selling components to the Chinese manufacturer in an effort to cut off its access to US technology. That doesn’t mean COVID-19 is going to start slaughtering people — the fatality rate is two percent — but it would be foolish to assume we already know the impact coronavirus is going to have on the global economy. TSMC certainly isn’t going to welcome the interference — Huawei is reportedly the company’s largest customer after Apple, accounting for some 10 percent of its business, according to The Wall Street Journal. Essentially, the United States would be gambling that US chip manufacturing equipment is so critical to the rest of the world, companies would choose to keep buying from US firms rather than do business with Huawei. The United States government has tried to persuade other countries that Huawei equipment represents a unique risk to global communications networks but has enjoyed only limited success.
