Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is postponing construction of a second semiconductor plant in Kumamoto, Japan, a project that had been expected to break ground in early 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. The schedule for the facility—part of a roughly $20 billion Japanese expansion—now remains open-ended. Sources told the newspaper that TSMC is diverting funds to accelerate capacity in the United States as it seeks to insulate itself from potential import tariffs a future Trump administration could impose on overseas-made chips. The Kumamoto project was to receive about $8 billion in subsidies from Tokyo, underscoring the political and financial stakes of the delay. The company is already pouring billions of dollars into multiple fabs in Arizona and in March pledged an additional $100 billion to build as many as six wafer plants and two advanced-packaging sites in the U.S. TSMC said in a brief statement that the stepped-up American investment "will not impact its existing investment plans in other regions," but people familiar with the Japanese project said a new start date has not been set. The shift highlights how the prospect of new U.S. trade barriers is reshaping global semiconductor supply chains, forcing even the industry’s largest contract chipmaker to recalibrate where it deploys capital.