But Nikkei reported on May 19 that Huawei has stopped taking chip orders from Huawei.
This is pretty speedy cooperation since the Huawei ban was only announced last Thursday, the Federal Register didn’t even formally publish it until this week, and it’s supposed to be implemented in the form of an export license application/refusal process presumably involving an appeal mechanism.
TSMC hasn’t confirmed the report, which might mean that Nikkei, a reliable Asian outlet for China hawks, might be doing a bit of frontrunning and perception management. But if it is true, and TSMC went into the Arizona project knowing it was going to cut off Huawei sales, the U.S. plant looks more like surrender to the U.S. and its plans to onshore semiconductor production.