By David Shepardson and David Lawder
MANASSAS, Virginia, May 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday there were no imminent new U.S. tariffs expected to be imposed on semiconductors, but that it was important to protect the sector with duties to facilitate reshoring of chip production.
Greer, speaking at a Micron Technology memory chip plant expansion project in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, said that any tariffs USTR's long-awaited Section 232 national security investigation
aimed at protecting the U.S. semiconductor sector needed to be properly sequenced to promote U.S. output.
"Having tariffs on semiconductors is really important. What's even more important than having protection for facilities like this is making sure we do it on the right timing and in the right amount," Greer said.
"There was not an immediate tariff coming," he said.
In January, the Trump administration noted the United States fully manufactures only approximately 10% of the chips it requires, making it heavily reliant on foreign supply chains.
"These are complex supply chains. We've seen offshoring of semiconductors for decades," Greer said, adding the government wants to ensure there are no immediate tariffs on companies that are producing semiconductors, and will allow companies to import an unspecified amount during that "reshoring phase."
In June, Micron said it was expanding its U.S. investments by $30 billion. The company said its planned investments will total $200 billion.
Micron said on Friday it had begun 1‑alpha DRAM wafer manufacturing in Manassas, Virginia, of the most advanced memory chip produced in the U.S.
DRAM chips are components in personal computing, cars, industrial operations, wireless communications and AI, and Micron's High-Bandwidth Memory is critical for enabling new AI models.
In December 2024, the U.S. Commerce Department under former President Joe Biden finalized a nearly $6.2 billion government subsidy for Micron to produce semiconductors in New York and Idaho, one of the largest government awards to chip companies under the $52.7 billion 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, writing by David Lawder, Editing by Franklin Paul and Rod Nickel)
