The latest data shows that in 2025, the United States became Taiwan’s largest trading partner, surpassing mainland China (including Hong Kong) for the first time in 26 years. This “shift from China to the US” phenomenon is significant in Taiwan’s trade landscape.
Influenced by global supply chain restructuring and the trend of “de-Sinicization,” the United States has officially overtaken mainland China and Hong Kong, becoming Taiwan’s largest export market and the main source of trade deficit.
According to data released by Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance on Friday, January 9, the proportion of exports to the United States has climbed to 30.9% of Taiwan’s total exports, while exports to mainland China and Hong Kong have decreased to 26.6%. This marks the first time since 1999 that the United States has become Taiwan’s largest export destination.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance stated that benefiting from the surge in demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing, and cloud services, Taiwan’s export value reached $640.75 billion in 2025, a 34.9% increase year-on-year, setting a historic record. These figures only cover trade in goods.
This shift can be primarily attributed to the high-tech products related to AI infrastructure that Taiwan exports to the United States. Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s AI servers and holds a 70% market share in semiconductor foundry services. Significant investments by American tech companies like Nvidia in AI data centers have greatly altered Taiwan’s export landscape.
From around 2000 to the 2010s, Taiwan’s exports to China (including Hong Kong) grew significantly due to Taiwanese companies setting up factories there to produce laptops, smartphones, and other products that required Taiwanese semiconductors and components.
Today, the mainstream supply chain related to AI servers has pivoted to shipping directly from Taiwan to the United States, bypassing mainland China.
According to statistics from Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, in 2016, China was the primary production location for Taiwanese overseas orders, accounting for about half of total orders. By 2024, this percentage had decreased to 33%. Meanwhile, the proportion of orders produced domestically in Taiwan has exceeded 50%, and Taiwanese companies’ production scale in Southeast Asia is continuously growing.
Sun Mingde, Director of the Commercial Development Research Center at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, told the Nikkei Asia, “Exporting more to the United States than to mainland China will become the norm for Taiwan.”
Sun Mingde stated that Taiwan’s export trends in 2026 will depend on the development of the AI industry. However, he also warned that the expanding trade surplus with the United States could raise concerns for the Trump administration.
The Trump administration insists that Taiwanese companies must produce a certain amount of chips in the United States. US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick publicly stated that he hopes 40% to 50% of US semiconductor consumption will come from domestic production, and the administration’s goal is to “bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States.”
Previous tariffs imposed by the United States have already heavily impacted Taiwan’s non-high-tech manufacturing industries, including machinery and metal sectors. Taiwan is still negotiating with the US to reduce the current 20% tariff rate, with reducing the trade surplus with the US remaining a focal point of the negotiations.
It is reported that Taiwan is promoting the “Taiwan Model” to facilitate the expansion of Taiwanese high-tech companies in the United States. This model draws inspiration from Taiwan’s industrial cluster model in science parks, aiming to establish similar industry clusters in the United States for Taiwanese companies to manufacture products locally.