GlobalFoundries chief says tariffs could benefit US chipmakers

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By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) – GlobalFoundries Chief Executive Officer Thomas Caulfield said on Tuesday that U.S. tariffs on foreign-made chips could help U.S. chip manufacturers by boosting demand for domestically made chips.

Caulfield told an investor conference hosted by Morgan Stanley the $52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act and an investment tax credit on chip-making equipment had helped boost U.S. capacity to make chips. Tariffs that would make foreign chips more expensive would help steer customers toward the chips being produced in U.S. factories, he added.

“I don’t think one or the other is enough. I do believe you need (the) CHIPS (Act) and the (investment tax credit) to create the capacity, and the tariffs to kind of create the dynamics to make the demand want to come home,” said Caulfield, who plans to transition to an executive chairman role next month.

Caulfield’s comments come as some in the industry have braced for potential changes to CHIPS Act grant conditions under President Donald Trump.

Trump on Monday held a press conference with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, which announced plans for new factories and $100 billion of investment in the U.S.

“They’re coming here in huge size because they want to be in the greatest market in the world, and they want to avoid the tariffs that if they’re not here, they’d have to suffer,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said of TSMC on Monday.

On Tuesday, Caulfield said he expected the U.S. to land on a combination of tariffs and government assistance.

“As we get through a little bit of the fluidity of the situation right now, that’s where this thing will land,” Caulfield said. “We’ll find that the combination of the two is how you’ll get the outcome you’re looking for.”

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)