THE U.S. Commerce Department is pressing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and other Taiwan-based firms to prioritize the needs of U.S. automakers to ease chip shortages in the near term, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday.

Raimondo told a Council of the Americas event that longer term, increased investment was needed to produce more semiconductors in the United States and that other critical supply chains needed re-shoring, including to allied countries.

“We’re working hard to see if we can get the Taiwanese and TSMC, which is a big company there, to, you know, prioritize the needs of our auto companies since there’s so many American jobs on the line,” Raimondo said in response to a question from a General Motors Co. (GM) executive.

“As I said, there’s not a day goes by that we don’t push on that,” she said, adding the medium and long-term solution would be “simply making more chips in America.”

TSMC said that addressing the shortage remained its top priority. (SD-Agencies)