Taiwan “will not agree” to making 50 percent of its semiconductors in the United States, the island’s lead tariff negotiator said Wednesday, as Washington pressures Taipei to produce more chips on US soil. Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said he had proposed to Taiwan a 50-50 split in chip production. Soaring demand for AI-related technology has fuelled Taiwan’s trade surplus with the United States — and put it in Trump’s crosshairs. More than 70 percent of the island’s exports to the United States are information and communications technology, which includes chips, the cabinet said in a statement Wednesday. “That has been the conversation we’ve had with Taiwan, that you have to understand that it’s vital for you to have us produce 50 percent,” he said.