Taiwan will boost investment in the United States and on its own defences, President Lai Ching-te said Friday, as Taipei seeks to head off US President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs on its semiconductor chips. The self-ruled island is a global power in the manufacturing of chips, which are used in everything from smartphones to missiles and are a key driver of its economy.Trump has accused Taiwan of stealing the US chip industry and recently threatened to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on the product in an effort to drive companies to shift manufacturing to the United States.Taiwan would “expand investment and procurement in the United States to promote bilateral trade balance”, Lai told reporters after a high-level national security meeting on US trade and tariffs.Taiwan’s trade surplus with the United States soared about 83 percent to a record US$64.9 billion in 2024.When it came to Trump’s concerns about Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, Lai said the government would respond “prudently”.”I would like to emphasise that Taiwan, as the world’s most powerful semiconductor country, has the ability and willingness to cope with the new situation,” Lai said.Taiwan was willing to work with democratic partners such as the United States to build a “more resilient and diversified semiconductor supply chain”, Lai said.Taiwan’s TSMC, which is the world’s largest chipmaker, has long been under pressure to move more of its production away from Taiwan, where the bulk of its fabrication plants are located.TSMC’s new factories overseas include three planned in the United States and one that opened in Japan last year.To show its determination to protect the island, the government will also prioritise “special budgets” to increase defence spending to more than three percent of gross domestic product, Lai said, compared with about 2.5 percent last year.Taiwan lives under the constant threat of an attack by China, which claims the island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.While Taiwan has a homegrown defence industry and has been upgrading its equipment, it relies heavily on US arms sales to bolster its security capabilities.Asked if he was concerned Taiwan could become “a pawn” in US-China competition, Lai said the island was “an indispensable member of the world and the region”.”We are a player, not a pawn,” he added. 

US President Donald Trump’s administration has begun laying off probationary employees as it moves to the next stage of its plans to aggressively shrink the federal workforce.The US Department of Veteran’s Affairs was one of the first departments to publicly confirm the layoffs, announcing in a statement that it dismissed more than 1,000 probationary employees on Thursday in non “mission critical” positions. “The dismissals announced today are part of a government-wide Trump Administration effort to make agencies more efficient, effective and responsive to the American People,” it said in a statement. Although the exact number of federal employees affected is unclear, more than 200,000 recently hired workers are currently serving out their probationary period, according to the most recently available government data.The Trump administration directed agency heads to terminate most trial and probationary staff — who have fewer civil service protections — US media reported Thursday.An employee who was laid off from her job at the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) told AFP on condition of anonymity that she had been fired during a video call to which close to 100 employees had been invited. The employee, and several other participants, were still serving out their probationary periods. All were told they were being let go for performance purposes. Shortly after the call ended, the employee received a letter from acting OPM director Charles Ezell confirming she had been fired. Her access was cut off less than an hour later. Spokespeople for OPM and the White House press offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday’s actions follow a White House push — led by OPM — to shrink the number of government workers by offering them eight months’ pay to resign. The email with the resignation offer, titled “Fork in the Road,” also noted that those who did not accept risked being let go in future culls. More than 65,000 federal employees accepted the buyout offer from OPM, the White House said. One employee at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who spoke with AFP reported accepting the OPM’s offer to resign out of concern for otherwise being fired.”This was my dream job,” said the employee, who was not on probation but who had been at HUD for less time — and thus had less job security — than many other colleagues. “It just became very clear to me that the writing is on the wall,” the employee said. “I might as well take the best cushion I have to put myself in the best situation to take the time I need to find a new position.”A HUD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.