TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday compared the national security risk of Taiwan's dominance of the advanced semiconductor market to the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo and said the US must de-risk its reliance on Taiwan’s chips.
Appearing on the Fox News program “Mornings with Maria,” hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Bessent discussed the White House's approach to strategically important industries. When asked whether the government might acquire stakes in chipmakers such as Nvidia, he said he did not believe the firm needed financial support.
However, he did not rule out taking stakes in other sectors, such as shipbuilding, describing them as industries in which the US must achieve self-sufficiency. “As I have said many times, the only good thing about COVID was that it was a Beta test, for if we were to go into a kinetic war or get cut off from some of these industries,” he said.
Bessent emphasized that semiconductors are a strategic necessity for the US and revealed that during the pandemic, the government identified five to seven strategic vulnerabilities in critical industries. He said Trump has already begun pushing de-risking measures that could also bring considerable returns for US taxpayers.
Bartiromo asked whether other shipping or semiconductor companies should be concerned about political interference and whether Intel would receive preferential treatment compared with its competitors. She said these are issues that any free-market capitalist would be concerned about when the government begins taking stakes in companies.
Bessent responded that most semiconductor companies are doing well, but stressed, “What we have ended up with is 99% of the advanced chips in the world are manufactured on the island of Taiwan.” He described the situation as a “national security risk like we haven't seen since the Arab Oil Embargo.”
“We just have to de-risk several aspects of the US economy," said. Calling Trump a businessman focused on solutions, Bessent criticized previous administrations for allowing these strategic risks to "just sit around."
