SEOUL ¨C When Joe Biden landed in South Korea last month ¡ª his first official trip to the country as U.S. President ¡ª he headed straight for Samsung¡¯s massive semiconductor factory outside Seoul.
There, he met with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, and praised the construction of a $17 billion Samsung semiconductor factory in Texas. The economic and strategic importance of semiconductors could not have been made any clearer.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, semiconductor supply disruptions forced a range of industries ¡ª from automobiles to consumer electronics ¡ª to slow or halt production. Reliable semiconductor supplies, it became clear, are vital to a country¡¯s economic resilience. For the United States and China, they are also central to a strategic competition in which leadership in cutting-edge industries plays a crucial role.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.