Samsung is investing billions into setting up more production facilities in the US. This is so the company can avoid paying huge tariffs for the tech it currently imports from countries like China. However, we imagine that getting its US facilities up and running could take a while, but the company has caught a break. According to reports, Samsung has reportedly received approval to import US equipment needed for its chips to China.
Samsung can export US-made equipment for its chips to China
What this means is that at least for 2026, Samsung has been granted approval by the US government to export US-made equipment to China for its chips. Due to the ongoing trade war between the US and China, there are various export controls in place that limit US technology from being sent to China.
However, in this instance, Samsung has been granted permission to do so. Samsung previously held “Verified End User” (VEU) status from the US government. This allowed the company to import US-made equipment to its China factories. However, in August, the US government announced that Samsung would be removed from the list.
Had this gone into effect, Samsung would have needed government approval for each piece of equipment. This would severely slow down the company’s operations and cause huge disruptions. In this case, Samsung has managed to get around that, but it isn’t a permanent fix. This approval is said to have been granted on a per-annual basis, meaning that 2027 could be a different story for the South Korean tech giant.
Moving to the US
As we said, Samsung is in the process of building up more facilities in the US for its semiconductor business. This comes on the heels of the Trump administration trying to bring more semiconductor business back to the US.
To incentivize companies to do so, the US government has placed tariffs on semiconductors imported from other countries. This would add to the overall cost of a product, which could ultimately make it more expensive to produce and purchase.
This is why, in addition to Samsung, other companies like TSMC are also investing heavily into its US operations. TSMC is the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer right now. It boasts names like Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, MediaTek, and more as its customers. Moving production to the US would be a costly exercise, but losing those customers to another company, like Intel or Samsung, could be costlier.
