Taiwan president gifts Trump TSMC founder autobiography to foster semiconductor cooperation

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te handed Donald Trump something unusual for a diplomatic gift: a two-volume autobiography of Morris Chang, the 94-year-old founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The book was delivered through US diplomat Raymond Greene during a US Independence Day reception in Taipei on May 27.

A book, a billionaire, and a $165B bet

Morris Chang didn’t just attend the reception. He was effectively the centerpiece of it. The TSMC founder’s presence alongside the book delivery created a living endorsement of the semiconductor relationship between Taiwan and the US.

TSMC is currently pouring $165 billion into advanced manufacturing facilities in Arizona. That figure represents one of the largest foreign direct investments in US history, designed to bring cutting-edge chip fabrication onto American soil for the first time at meaningful scale.

Chips as diplomatic currency

The timing of this gesture matters enormously. It arrives against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical maneuvering, with Trump recently engaging in discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping about potential arms sales to Taiwan. Trump reportedly referred to Taiwan as a “negotiating chip” in those conversations.

TSMC manufactures chips at the 3-nanometer node and below, a capability that no American company currently possesses domestically. Intel has been working to catch up, but TSMC remains years ahead in production volume and yield rates.

Why this matters beyond politics

China has been spending aggressively to build its own semiconductor capabilities, but remains several generations behind TSMC in advanced chip manufacturing. The US has been using export controls to try to slow China’s progress while simultaneously trying to build domestic production capacity through initiatives like the CHIPS Act and TSMC’s Arizona expansion.

Chang founded TSMC in 1987, essentially inventing the foundry model where a company manufactures chips designed by other firms rather than designing its own. That business model created the entire ecosystem that companies like Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm depend on today.

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