When Joe Biden landed in South Korea last month — his first official trip to the country as U.S. President — 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 — from automobiles to consumer electronics — 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.