The ongoing shortage of semiconductors is wreaking havoc on the automotive industry and it has now emerged that the Biden administration has sought the help of the Taiwanese government to resolve the problem.
President Joe Biden’s top economic advisor, Brian Deese, recently sent a letter to Taiwan’s minister of economic affairs, Wang Mei-hua, thanking her for her engagement on the issue. He also relayed concerns from U.S. automotive companies.
Bloomberg reports that Deese and national security advisor Jake Sullivan are engaging in efforts to address bottlenecks in the supply chains of car manufacturers. A White House spokesperson added that the shortage is not a short-term crisis and that the administration is talking with allies to address it. It has also been confirmed that the administration has asked U.S. embassies around the world to identify how countries and companies producing semiconductors can address the global shortage.
Taiwan is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors and the U.S. auto industry is asking the White House to pressure foreign chipmakers to allocate crucial supplies to them.
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“We think those are reasonable things for the government to ask,” president of the American Automotive Policy Council Matt Blunt said. “This is going to be a problem for the first half of the year.”
President Biden is expected to sign an executive order to demand a review of supply chains in the coming weeks. Various officials from the administration have also identified semiconductors as an area of strategic domestic investment that needs to be made to help the country reduce its reliance on other countries.
Auto industry experts suggest that upwards of 1 million fewer light vehicles will be produced in the first quarter of 2021 because of the shortage.
