As is well known, the US government has introduced a rather steep tariff increase for most countries around the world, including Malaysia. For our country, companies importing products from Malaysia to the US are seeing a 24 percent tariff increase for all products exported to that market from this country.
Recently, the Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz has said that US companies such as Intel and Oracle have discussed with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim about the tariff increase.
Could Trump tariffs push US tech giants like Intel and Oracle to leave Malaysia?#TZA #MITI #ThisIsWhereGlobalStarts #MADANIIsWorking #tariff #usa #trump pic.twitter.com/XqsLsXmOZ6
— Tengku Zafrul 🇲🇾 (@tzafrul_aziz) April 22, 2025
Through the video, Tengku Zafrul said that Intel in particular had discussed the difficulties they were facing, especially regarding their factory in Penang, and how it was important to ensure that the supply chain of their processor chips did not inflate in terms of prices, especially when they were exported to the United States for completion.
For context, part of Intel's processor chip assembly is done at their factory in Penang, and will be sent to the United States for the final packaging process before it is sold.
As for Oracle, they not only operate in Malaysia, but have also invested billions of Ringgit to develop regional data centers in Malaysia, in addition to offering over 150 SaaS services and infrastructure. Oracle also said that their services will enable various organizations in Malaysia to modernize their respective applications, in addition to carrying out various innovations using data and artificial intelligence.
He also said that the Malaysian government is in discussions with other American companies through the America-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and also the US-ASEAN Chamber of Commerce.