Taiwan’s Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun delivered a firm rejection on Sunday, declaring that relocating 40% of the island’s semiconductor production capacity to the United States is “impossible,” directly countering repeated demands from U.S. officials amid escalating geopolitical tensions over critical technology supply chains.

In an interview broadcast on Taiwanese television channel CTS, Cheng stated she had made the position unmistakably clear to Washington: “I have made it very clear to the United States that this is impossible.”

She emphasized that Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem—built over more than four decades of investment, innovation, and industrial clustering—cannot be dismantled or transplanted without devastating consequences for both Taiwan and global supply chains.

“Our overall capacity (in Taiwan) will only continue to grow,” Cheng said, adding that the industry would keep investing at home.

International expansion, including increased investment in the United States, would proceed only “based on the premise that we remain firmly rooted in Taiwan and continue to expand investment at home.” She ruled out any relocation of Taiwan’s science parks and core manufacturing base, while offering to share expertise in building industry clusters to help the U.S. develop its own semiconductor ecosystem.

The comments represent Taiwan’s strongest public pushback yet against U.S. pressure to onshore a substantial portion of advanced chip production. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has repeatedly called for bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to American soil, arguing it is “illogical” to have the majority of leading-edge capacity located just 80 miles from China.

In a CNBC interview last month, Lutnick set an explicit goal for the Trump administration: achieving 40% U.S. market share in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing by the end of its term. He previously floated a 50-50 split of chip production between Taiwan and the U.S. in a September 2025 appearance on NewsNation, warning that failure to meet relocation targets could result in tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors rising as high as 100%. Taiwan rejected the 50-50 proposal at the time, and Cheng’s latest remarks reinforce that stance.

The island produces over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90% of the most advanced logic chips (nodes of 7nm and below) critical for AI, smartphones, defense systems, and high-performance computing. This dominance is often described as Taiwan’s “silicon shield”—a strategic deterrent against potential Chinese aggression, as any military conflict would devastate global chip supplies.

The U.S. push is driven by national security concerns, supply chain resilience, and efforts to reduce dependence on Taiwan in the face of rising tensions with China. The CHIPS and Science Act has already allocated tens of billions in subsidies to attract investment, and TSMC—the world’s largest contract chipmaker and Taiwan’s flagship company—has committed $165 billion to build multiple fabs in Arizona.

Phase 1 production of 4nm chips is scheduled to begin in 2025, with more advanced nodes to follow. TSMC has also announced additional U.S. facilities in Texas and other states, representing the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. semiconductor history.

However, industry experts and Taiwanese officials stress that replicating Taiwan’s ecosystem—characterized by unparalleled clustering of fabs, suppliers, specialized talent, water resources, and engineering know-how—is extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming. Moving 40% of capacity would require trillions of dollars, decades of development, and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of highly skilled workers, many of whom are reluctant to leave Taiwan.

Cheng made clear that while Taiwan is willing to cooperate with the U.S. onshoring through technology sharing and investment, its core production base and science parks will remain firmly on the island. Last month, the U.S. and Taiwan reached a tariff agreement reducing duties on Taiwanese exports from 20% to 15%, providing short-term relief. Cheng described the deal as constructive but reiterated that capacity relocation is not part of the discussion.

The standoff highlights the delicate balance in U.S.-Taiwan relations. Washington seeks to “friend-shore” critical technology while Taipei views its semiconductor leadership as both an economic lifeline and a strategic asset. Analysts note that even aggressive U.S. onshoring efforts are likely to complement rather than replace Taiwan’s role in the foreseeable future, given the island’s unmatched efficiencies and the global industry’s dependence on its output.

The debate over semiconductor geography is expected to remain a central flashpoint in U.S.-China-Taiwan dynamics as negotiations continue and TSMC’s Arizona fabs ramp up, with profound implications for global technology supply chains.

Musk’s lunar pivot is not just about speed, but about anchoring SpaceX’s commercial, AI, and geopolitical ambitions closer to Earth before attempting the harder leap to Mars.

Elon Musk has redrawn the roadmap for SpaceX’s interplanetary ambitions, elevating the Moon from a stepping stone to a strategic destination in its own right.

The billionaire founder said the company is now prioritizing the construction of a “self-growing city” on the lunar surface, a project he believes could be realized in less than 10 years, even as plans for Mars are pushed slightly further into the future.

In a post on X on Sunday, Musk said SpaceX still intends to begin building a city on Mars within five to seven years, but described the Moon as the faster and more urgent option.

“The overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” he wrote.

The comments echoed a Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX has told investors it will focus first on lunar missions, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed Moon landing.

The shift marks a subtle but meaningful change in tone from Musk, who for more than a decade has framed Mars as SpaceX’s ultimate destination. As recently as last year, he said an uncrewed Mars mission could launch by the end of 2026. The revised emphasis suggests a reassessment of timelines, technical readiness, and near-term strategic value, at a moment when the Moon is once again at the center of global space competition.

The United States faces mounting pressure from China, which has outlined plans to land astronauts on the Moon and establish a long-term presence later this decade. With humans absent from the lunar surface since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the return to the Moon has taken on renewed geopolitical significance, extending beyond exploration to questions of technological leadership, security, and access to resources.

SpaceX is deeply embedded in Washington’s lunar strategy. The company holds a $4 billion contract under NASA’s Artemis programme to use its Starship vehicle to land astronauts on the Moon. Yet Musk has increasingly downplayed the role of government contracts in SpaceX’s overall business. On Monday, he said NASA would account for less than 5% of the company’s revenue this year, underscoring how commercial activities now dominate its financial model.

“Vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system,” Musk said, highlighting the satellite broadband business that has transformed the company’s cash flow.

That commercial focus was reinforced on Sunday when SpaceX aired its first Super Bowl advertisement, pitching Starlink’s internet service to a global audience.

The lunar pivot also comes as Musk tightens the links between SpaceX and his broader technology empire. Less than a week ago, he announced that SpaceX had acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence company he also leads, in a deal valuing SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. Supporters of the move argue it strengthens Musk’s long-term vision of space-based computing infrastructure, as demand for AI processing power strains electricity grids and land availability on Earth.

Musk has repeatedly argued that space offers a solution to those constraints. He has promoted the idea of orbital data centers powered by abundant solar energy, and a sustained lunar presence could eventually support similar ambitions, whether through power generation, manufacturing, or serving as a logistics hub for deeper-space infrastructure. In that light, a Moon city is not just a symbolic achievement, but a potential anchor for commercial, industrial, and AI-driven activity beyond Earth.

Financing remains a critical question. SpaceX is reportedly considering a public offering later this year that could raise as much as $50 billion, a sum that would make it the largest IPO in history. Such capital would help fund the enormous costs associated with Starship development, lunar missions, satellite deployment, and longer-term plans for Mars.

At the same time, Musk is reshaping Tesla, his publicly traded electric vehicle company, to align more closely with his bets on autonomy and robotics. Tesla plans to spend about $20 billion this year to accelerate its push into self-driving technology and humanoid robots. Musk said last month the company would halt production of two car models at its California factory to free up capacity for manufacturing its Optimus robots.

Together, the moves point to a broader strategy: reallocating capital and engineering talent from maturing businesses toward ventures Musk believes will define the next technological era. The Moon, once treated largely as a waypoint on the journey to Mars, is now being recast as the most practical proving ground for those ambitions.

Whether SpaceX can deliver a self-sustaining lunar city within a decade remains uncertain, given the technical, financial, and regulatory hurdles involved. But Musk’s recalibration suggests that, for now, the future he envisions for humanity beyond Earth begins not on the red plains of Mars, but much closer to home.

Gold’s return above $5,000 and silver’s outsized surge underscore how macro uncertainty and systematic hedge-fund strategies are now reinforcing each other in the precious metals market.

Gold and silver extended their rally on Monday, with bullion reclaiming the psychologically important $5,000-per-ounce level as a softer U.S. dollar and expectations around future interest rate cuts continued to underpin demand.

The move came as investors positioned cautiously ahead of a packed week of U.S. economic data, including jobs and inflation figures that could shape the Federal Reserve’s rate path for the rest of the year.

Spot gold rose 0.9% to $5,004.61 per ounce by 0748 GMT, building on a sharp 4% gain recorded on Friday. U.S. gold futures for April delivery added 1% to $5,026.30 per ounce. The rebound has been aided by renewed dollar weakness, with the greenback sliding to its lowest level since early February, making dollar-priced commodities more attractive to non-U.S. buyers.

Kelvin Wong, a senior market analyst at OANDA, said short-term currency dynamics were playing a clear role in the latest move. He noted that the intraday correlation between the weaker dollar and strength in both gold and silver was pushing prices higher, at least in the near term.

Currency markets added another layer to the story. The Japanese yen strengthened after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi secured a decisive election victory on Sunday, reinforcing pressure on the dollar index. A firmer yen has historically coincided with stronger precious metals prices, particularly when it reflects shifting expectations around global monetary policy.

Beyond currency moves, analysts pointed to renewed bargain-hunting after last week’s sharp swings. Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, said dip-buying helped propel gold back above $5,000, a level that has increasingly acted as both a technical and psychological anchor in recent weeks.

Attention is now firmly on U.S. macro data. Investors are awaiting monthly employment and consumer price reports later this week, which are expected to offer fresh clues on the resilience of the U.S. labor market and the trajectory of inflation. Market pricing currently implies expectations of at least two 25-basis-point interest rate cuts in 2026, with the first potentially arriving as early as June. Non-yielding assets such as gold typically benefit when rate-cut expectations firm, as the opportunity cost of holding bullion declines.

Waterer said any signs of softness in the labor market could further support gold’s rebound. While expectations remain that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady in the near term, a sharper deterioration in jobs data could accelerate calls for easing. San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly added to that narrative on Friday, saying one or two more rate cuts may ultimately be needed to counter labor market weakness.

Silver, meanwhile, has once again outperformed gold. Spot silver jumped 3.7% to $80.89 per ounce after posting a near-10% gain in the previous session. The metal remains highly volatile after hitting an all-time high of $121.64 on January 29. Wong cautioned that silver still faces a key technical hurdle, noting that failure to clear resistance around $92.24 could weaken the probability of a sustained medium-term uptrend.

Other precious metals were more subdued. Spot platinum slipped 0.7% to $2,081.23 per ounce, while palladium eased 0.3% to $1,707.31, highlighting how gold and silver are currently absorbing the bulk of speculative and defensive flows.

As prices whipsaw, one segment of the hedge-fund industry has emerged as a major beneficiary of the turbulence. Commodity Trading Advisors, or CTAs, which rely on systematic, computer-driven strategies, have been actively trading the strong momentum in precious metals. These funds use quantitative models, statistical signals, and machine-learning techniques to identify trends across futures markets, reducing reliance on discretionary decision-making.

The surge in gold and silver over recent months has allowed trend-following funds to recover losses suffered during last year’s “Liberation Day” market turmoil. Importantly, performance has held up even after the recent pullbacks. Société Générale’s SG CTA Index rose 5% in January, while the SG Trend Index, which tracks the 10 largest trend-following hedge funds, climbed 6.9% by January 29. January marked one of the strongest months for the index since 2000. Both benchmarks remained up more than 4% year-to-date as of February 4, suggesting these strategies have managed to navigate the metals’ violent swings with relative success.

Andrew Beer, managing member at Dynamic Beta Investments, said the sector’s strength lies in its ability to adjust quickly. He noted that while last week’s sharp reversal in gold and silver likely prompted many CTAs to reduce risk, most remain positioned to benefit from further upside moves. Beer said the pullback amounted largely to profit-taking after funds had been early and contrarian in building positions in precious metals.

Industry data suggests that diversification across different time horizons has also helped. Short-term models, designed to react quickly to fleeting trends, tend to enter and exit positions faster, while medium- and longer-term models focus on broader macro themes such as yen weakness, sustained gold rallies, and asset allocation shifts away from U.S. equities. That blend has allowed funds to capture gains while limiting exposure during abrupt sell-offs.

Jon Caplis, founder and chief executive of hedge-fund data provider PivotalPath, said medium-term trend followers, which dominate its Managed Futures Index, have delivered consistent returns from several drivers, including long exposure to precious metals. He noted that even after sharp late-month sell-offs, gold finished the month up 9.3% and silver up 11.2%, underscoring why many systematic strategies remain profitable.

At the same time, silver’s increasing association with retail-driven “meme trade” dynamics has complicated the picture. Yung-Shin Kung, partner and chief investment officer at Mast Investments, said silver’s relatively low price and liquidity made it attractive for speculative retail activity, but those characteristics often clash with the requirements of trend-following models. As a result, some systematic funds may have trimmed exposure, helping them avoid the worst of silver’s most recent slide.

Together, the latest rally highlights how macroeconomic uncertainty, currency movements, and systematic trading strategies are reinforcing price action in gold and silver. With key U.S. data still ahead and volatility entrenched, precious metals are likely to remain at the center of both defensive positioning and quantitative trading strategies in the weeks ahead.