Transatlantic Trade Monitor: Facts You Need Now | When the CHIPs are down: the Case for Semiconductor Corridors

By Ian Hunter, Director, OCO GLOBAL

On Saturday, President Trump confirmed a 30 % tariff on most imports from the EU and Mexico, set to begin August 1. While the final product list is still pending, the administration has signaled – most recently on July  8 – that additional, sector-specific tariffs on semiconductors are being considered. Reuters reporting indicates these could exceed 25%, targeting critical inputs like chipmaking tools (Reuters, July 9). While not yet finalized, the prospect alone is creating uncertainty for capital planning, tooling procurement, and cross-border investment strategies.

This isn’t an abstract concern—it reaches straight into active fabs, suppliers, and regional investments. Last week, TSMC broke ground on Phase 3 of its Arizona campus, a facility slated to manufacture 2 nm chips for future mobile and AI devices, in what state officials call “the largest foreign manufacturing investment in U.S. history.”  Just one month prior to this announcement, ASML’s Chandler support center – opened in 2001 – announced a new high-NA EUV training wing to prepare local engineers to service the lithography machines on which those chips will depend.

ASML’s announced a new high-NA EUV training wing in Chandler in May 2025 ensures that the technical backbone of these fabs is serviced in real time, with local engineering capacity embedded at the edge of production. The corridor between Veldhoven and Phoenix is no longer abstract, it is engineered, reciprocal, and increasingly indispensable.

This illustrates the puzzle: since the 2022 CHIPS Act, the U.S. semiconductor rebound has seen FDI projects rise from 11 to 38, capex increase by over 900%, and job creation up 250%, according to OCO Global analysis – mostly in Arizona, Texas, Ohio, and New York. Yet, these fabs rely heavily on European photonics, metrology, and tooling, all of which cross oceans weekly.

Now, with tariffs looming, what was once a resilient trans‑Atlantic collaboration risks unraveling. The solution isn’t more incentives or protectionism – it’s deliberately formalized semiconductor corridors that draw European precision capabilities shoreside to underpin U.S. fabs. In doing so, they transform friction into resilience.

A boom built on shared precision

The past five years have seen an unprecedented rebound in U.S. chip manufacturing. TSMC’s third fab in Phoenix is expected to produce chips for next-gen mobile and AI applications. Micron has committed up to $100 billion in New York’s I-81 corridor. Intel’s “Silicon Heartland” campus in Ohio anchors a wave of logic and memory investments stretching across the Midwest.

But none of these nodes are self-contained.  A semiconductor corridor is more than a trade lane. It’s a functional bridge between clusters, linking upstream R&D with downstream manufacturing, and embedding shared logistics, visa access, supplier incentives, and technical partnerships.

Here are three high-value transatlantic corridors – grounded in real activity:

These corridors already exist in practice, if not yet in name. Materials, talent, and IP move fluidly, often under informal arrangements that depend on political goodwill. The current moment exposes the fragility of that model.

When Tariffs Disrupt the Clock

Tariffs on cheese or steel are felt at the invoice. In chips, they affect the clock speed of an entire ecosystem. Lithography modules, resist chemicals, wafers, and even the engineers who commission tools must move in cadence. A 30% duty on optics could delay qualification of a production line by several quarters.

The situation is further complicated by Executive Order 14105, which directs the U.S. Treasury to monitor and restrict outbound investment into sensitive Chinese technologies, including semiconductors, quantum, and AI. While the current focus is on U.S. investors, many European firms in photonics and AI are watching closely – mindful that future expansions of U.S. policy could entangle joint ventures or cross-border tech partnerships..

As the policy terrain shifts, the search for predictable, long-term infrastructure becomes critical. That’s where corridors come in.

Turning Contingency into Strategy

Semiconductor corridors are no longer a theoretical construct or convenient metaphor – they are a strategic necessity. Over the past five years, the U.S. has made historic progress in rebuilding its chipmaking capacity. But without a corresponding investment in the connective tissue that binds this ecosystem together – European precision tools, research collaborations, and specialist talent – these gains risk becoming brittle.

The recent tariff announcement is not a disruption in itself, but a warning shot: that policy can shift faster than the logistics, procurement cycles, and R&D partnerships that underpin this industry. As Washington doubles down on economic leverage and Brussels explores supply-chain security clauses in lieu of retaliation, the lesson is clear: resilience must now be engineered as deliberately as the fabs themselves.

To ensure that America’s semiconductor boom is not undone by its own interdependence, corridors must be formalized, funded, and expanded. That means converting organic ties – between European precision-tool providers, R&D institutes, and U.S. manufacturing hubs – into structured, multi-nodal frameworks for co-location, supply-chain continuity, and innovation flow.  This model is not about creating new dependencies. It’s about recognizing that transatlantic semiconductor alignment already exists, and that it now needs infrastructure, governance, and intent.

The Resilience Race – Be an Early Mover

For economic development leaders, the next phase is not about chasing the next megaproject, it’s about anchoring the upstream ecosystem that keeps those projects viable. That means identifying the European toolmakers, photonics firms, and specialist suppliers that serve your region’s fabs and helping them navigate U.S. expansion. Whether through co-location support, tailored soft-landing programs, or introductions to trusted JV or acquisition partners, the priority is to de-risk their entry into your market and show how proximity translates into resilience.

Support shouldn’t stop at permitting or incentives – it should extend to business development support services: market scoping, real estate advisory, talent alignment, and the facilitation of long-term R&D collaboration with universities or existing tier-one manufacturers. In a moment where geopolitical shifts are driving firms to move faster, EDOs that act like solution partners, not just landing zones, will be the ones that embed themselves at the heart of the corridor model.

For private sector suppliers and OEMs, this is a moment that calls for both clarity and foresight. The political conditions that enabled smooth transatlantic trade just a few years ago are in flux and it would be short-sighted to assume stability will return soon. Tariffs, export controls, and outbound investment reviews may evolve rapidly, but fabs and tool qualification cycles do not.

To hedge against further disruption, companies should be embedding operational resilience within the U.S. market now – not just through direct greenfield investments or R&D partnerships, but by actively considering alternative entry modes, including acquisition of strategic U.S. assets or JV formation with corridor-aligned partners. Identifying these opportunities early – before regulatory or market conditions narrow the options – will separate those who absorb the next shock from those who scramble to react to it.

Corridor participation isn’t just risk management – it is a form of strategic insulation, a sign to customers and stakeholders that a company is investing in redundancy, speed, and relevance across both sides of the Atlantic.

Compliments of OCO Global – a member of the EACCNY