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- technology
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Summary
Trump plans to impose tariffs of up to 100% on semiconductors manufactured in Taiwan, aiming to push U.S. tech companies like Apple, Nvidia, and AMD to produce chips domestically.
The tariffs target Taiwan’s TSMC, a key supplier, despite its partial U.S. production in Arizona.
Trump criticized Biden’s CHIPS Act for funding companies like Intel and proposed tariffs as an alternative incentive.
Experts warn the move could raise prices for electronics as most TSMC chips are assembled in Asia before export to the U.S.
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This is really dumb for a number of reasons. But first and foremost, we have a strong alliance with Taiwan, we should be trying to maintain that connection and not let our relationship become hostile. We have military bases in Taiwan, this is part of how we keep a close eye on China. If nothing else, Taiwan is strategically important to us.
In other words, don’t fuck up years of successful diplomacy to make a quick buck like a nearsighted moron.
like a nearsighted moron
Uh, thing is, that’s 99.999999% of republicans right there.
Thing is, his real goal is to fuck up that alliance.
Trump has been compromised by the Russians ever since they bailed him out in the 90s. He is actively dismantling American global power, just in a way that is wrapped in a US flag so that the voters don’t realize it.
Feds woulda JFK’d him by now if this were true.
You assume there’s a “real power” that exists to stop him.
The president is not some underdog fighting the power. “Deep state” isn’t a shadowy cabal of people who secretly run the country, it’s the career office workers who have experience working in their departments and make tiny decisions in the implementation of authority delegated to regulatory agencies.
They’re not in smoke filled rooms they’re in beige conference rooms on cspan looking at PowerPoints.
Taiwan is only strategically important to the us because it manufactures those chips. Trump’s goal is to increase production in the us, so we aren’t forced to intervene when mainland China comes for them.
We have military bases in Taiwan
The US does not have military bases in Taiwan anymore - not since the US switched diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the PRC in 1979 - one of the concessions to the PRC was the removal of US military presence from Taiwan.
[…] proposed tariffs as an alternative incentive.
He learned one word and basis his entire view on economy on it.
He learned how to pronounce a word but only has concepts of its meaning. He still thinks the exporter pays tariffs.
Prediction: In under a month they’ll cut a deal to give American companies huge discounts and all pretense of “encouraging US production” will evaporate.
This is signalling that the US Is geopolitically abandoning Taiwan, Surrendering it to China. Looks like a backdoor deal has been made, CCP will move in by 2030. And the US isn’t going to fight
Every single person who calls themselves Ukrainian should be thanking their lucky stars Biden was in the whitehouse when Putin decided to start the Russkiy Mir game. Trump would have sold the country out and they would have lost their sovereignty with a whimper, and not a penny of support from the west. At least they were given a chance to fight their aggressors. Taiwan on the other hand, will lose everything, including their dignity.
I don’t disagree, but I have never understood why Putin attacked in 2022 and not in 2016-2020. The original war in Ukraine started in 2014.
My best guess is, he thought he could rig an election or corrupt Zelensky and only invaded when that didn’t work. And maybe he was confident Trump would win a second term.
He might have also been doubting the possibility of Trump winning in 2024 and he saw Ukraine getting stronger and integrating with the West day by day.
Because hypersonic and other new weapons like nuclear torpedo drone status 5 were not finished yet. Without that there was a chance of an open Western attack.
This is so silly.
Trump: I’m going to put a 100% tariff on your goods if you don’t start building them here.
TSMC: Yeah, we’re doing just that next year. We’re already fabbing them there in the US.
2026 rolls around and the final part of TSMZ in AZ is complete
Trump: I’m such a fucking genius.
And Republicans will eat this shit up.
Why do you think he decided to do it?
Yeah, let them just fire up the chip factory right away. 🙄
I want more domestic manufacturing, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
So if I buy a smart toaster from overseas and that toaster was built with microchips, but is then sold to the US via another country… That would avoid the tariff, no?
Doesn’t this literally do the inverse of boosting local manufacturing?
Tariffs are the kind of tool that… is almost always the worst possible choice as a punitive action. The cost is inherently passed to the local populace. So, at best, people are deprived of a luxury. At worst, people are paying an increased cost for a necessity.
Tariffs only actually work when you already have a comparable infrastructure and are trying to force the local populace to use it. Theoretically, those are the Intel and TSMC (…) fabs in the Southwest (?). But none of them are anywhere near ready to handle the consumer electronics that consumers actually want.
And yeah. A strict tariff would not impact a case where companies two hop products (which is basically how all “made in america” stuff works but that is a different mess). That said, if the tariffs on Canada take effect Saturday, it will still be very significant costs to US consumers as anything would need to be imported from Europe (MAYBE Mexico but that adds other issues).
That said, we aren’t living in a world of laws. So “tariffs” on actual companies that are deeemed to be doing workarounds could happen. How enforceable that would be is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure that everyone will be glad to jack up their prices because Apple might have to.
I wasn’t talking about a company doing a workaround, but people buying things from lverseas instead of buying things manufactured locally that needed tariffed parts.
A company hat manufactures smart bands in the US will have to increase the price to offset the chip cost increase, but xiaomi surely won’t so the “local” choice will be even more undesirable. I know that China has a global yoke on smart bands but you get the idea.
You may want to actually read the tracking page for your international purchases. When they get held up at a port or international airport? That is when the package is being inspected. Generally it is just weighed and someone eyeballs the declaration form and says “I don’t get paid enough for this shit”. That said, order enough stuff on aliexpress and you’ll have one or two packages get held for a few days and arrive to you wrapped in duct tape.
Very short term? Yeah, you can get away with lying on declaration forms. But that “big box of books” from Taiwan is going to raise a lot of red flags and then you are in a different mess.
The real question you did not ask is if this toaster is smarter than Trump.Yes it is.
It’s also weird that we would Tariff Taiwan while they’re in the middle of a losing power struggle with China.
Not weird when you realize that either the CCP or one of the Chinese companies that are required to have party members on board, “donated” to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Oh for sure, and online misinformation and TikTok were both the CCP boosting Trump during the campaign as well, but I meant weird from a sane person’s perspective.
This dumb motherfucker is going to make our missiles twice as expensive.
Half of his actions in the past week, especially in the past couple of days, have done things to weaken the U.S. military. It can’t all be accidental. There’s too much.
Most of his orders have boiled down to “report to the President in X weeks” the biggest one is probably the transgender ban. Which, while it sucks, isn’t going to affect enough service members to meaningfully impact the military. So there’s a lot of virtue signaling but not much movement in the EOs for the military.
The biggest actual thing has been interrupting the training cycles of the light infantry divisions with Warning Orders for a large deployment to the Southern Border. He managed to interrupt the 101st, 10th, and 82nd. Which is ridiculously bad management.
Sure, nothing has happened yet, but I think you need to look at all the cuts that are planned. Not just weapons systems and ships, although those are on the chopping block, but also commissaries and even on-base schools.
I could see him closing schools but the commissaries and exchanges are run by a private company. I doubt he’s going to after AAFES.
I’m afraid it’s already in the works. I can’t find a summary of the details really well except this Reddit thread which also links to a long document which includes that.
Good think I didn’t throw out all those discrete transistors, we’re in for a loooot of soldering
To be fair, this was Bidens idea, and the plants are already being finished in the US. Trump just wants to take credit for it.
Biden was not going to tariff Taiwan. His idea was to incentivize Taiwanese chip manufacturing to create an American manufacturing capability. That capability is not fully online and won’t be for years. This is a different policy.
Yet another tariff that is somehow magically against an American ally and not against Russia or China.
The US allies also need to get their hands on the pee tape or whatever the US enemies have in their hands…
Is there really anything anyone could use to blackmail trump? There could be a video of him eating a baby alive and a third of the country would still support him, and another third of the country wouldn’t even notice.
It’s sad but any sort of gay sex would tear his base, so there’s still that.
Insert joke about gay sex tearing one’s base
So considering his infatuation with trans people, you think the tape is with him and a preop trans woman?
No, all that would do is make them start going on about how “the left” is attacking queer folk now. Meanwhile they would still persecute queer people, because they would still fervently believe every other gay person in the world except for Trump was a pedophile who was grooming kids.
Is there really anything anyone could use to blackmail trump?
No. The “pee pee tape” joke has been obsolete for a long time now.
It’s pretty funny how this is an attack that could backfire extremely.
Almost all of the advanced chips are made using ASML EUV machines. Which is a Dutch company.
If Trump continues on this path of self-destruction, attacking countries and companies around the world, the US might just end up with sub-par chip production like China has. (They have old ASML machines and aren’t getting any new ones). TSMC is one of the biggest partners of ASML and has a LOT of cards to play to get ASML to not supply any machines to the US.
It’s absolutely horrid that a boy like Trump has any power and doesn’t even know that his attacks are nothing more than a punch to his own balls. A normal politician would work on alliances to get chip production going in the US before fucking over all the companies relying on chips. Stuff like subsidies for local chip production are not news worthy enough for him to get any kick out of so he just flexes his power.
It’s an “attack” that Biden had the idea for first. We’ve been working on it for a couple years now already, and the plants are already being built in the US. Nobody thinks of it as an attack.
But.
It’s not working out, because the Taiwanese teaching us how to do it think we’re all lazy, and the Americans learning think the Taiwanese are slave drivers.
Biden did not “attack” TSMC, he developed a plan to bring chip Manufacturing to the US. Orange man’s attack, an actual economic attack, has no actual plan. These attacks will send industries into free fall and he’ll pull the trigger flippantly, right now (the moment when he thinks he has just an idea of his own), long before the market will be able to correct and without taking any steps to mitigate a disaster. Maybe reactive half measures later, but disaster will happen all the same.
I know Biden didn’t attack TSMC, hence the quotation marks around the word.
I got the sense that was what you meant from the rest of your post, although I take it others did not get it based on down votes.
It’s not working out, because the Taiwanese teaching us how to do it think we’re all lazy, and the Americans learning think the Taiwanese are slave drivers.
I’m choosing to believe this partly because on my own preconceived notions, but mostly because it’s funny.
TSMC opened a factory in Arizona, so it’s really a big f u to the people of Taiwan while the owners of tsmc are good to go.
I get the bring jobs to the US bit, but the cost will be passed on to consumers and the whole market will shrink. There are existing chip fab facilities in the US, maybe efforts should focus on why they can’t compete instead of reducing demand for electronics inside the US.
Chips can’t even be fully produced here. You can make the chip here, but the packaging and some other things need to happen in Taiwan still. Until they get that goin the fab in the US is almost useless.
Not to mention all the really cool machines that make the chips are made in Europe
It’s almost like we are in a global economy!
WHY CAN’T EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD JUST BE MADE IN AMERICA!???!
DON’T THEY KNOW THAT’S WHAT JESUS WANTS??!
Globalist!! /s
The breadth of products and industries this will touch is going to be massive. Even if you’re not buying electronics from a company, those companies still have to buy and replace their own electronics to operate which, if those prices go up, it raises operating costs. Your cheeseburger can get a bit pricier because of this.
keep yer microchips out of my cheeseburgers!
Everything has a microcontroller anymore.
I read somewhere that the Taiwan government doesn’t allow advanced chip technology knowledge be used in the US factory?..
I mean, it is their one real bargaining chip to make sure the US keeps standing between them and China. They are teaching us some of it though, and we’ve been building fabs to make them here in the US for years. Biden got that ball rolling.
Photolithography itself was invented in the US a while ago, but the company that perfect the manufacturing process that is used for modern chips is in either Belgium or Denmark iirc. That company just leases its machines to TSMC so it’s entirely possible they could just move the machines to the USA. But that’s my surface level understanding, I don’t know for sure.
Netherlands, with key components (precision lenses) made in Germany. None of this could be made in the US in reasonable time.
Let’s explain tariffs so that even a baby like trump could understand.
If an item is sold for $1 and you put 100% tariff on it, it now costs $2 for a consumer in the US to buy. The government doesn’t get to take the $1 that the company is selling it for, they still make their $1 regardless of the tariff. All this does is force the US buyer to pay more.
I guess he could understand it if this is designed to funnel more money to the government but it’s gonna start impacting his tech bro handlers.
I just want to add one thing, the people in the country that issue the tariff also have no incentive to ignore the new price floor that the tariff represents. Instead, they will set their price to just below the new tariff floor and pocket what ever difference there is
What ends up happening in reality is that the tariff cost is effectively shared between the company selling and the customer (but not evenly). The company realizes that sales will plummet if the new price is $2, so they shave margin on their end to bring the price down to e.g. $1.75. But there’s obviously a lot of complexity behind exactly how much of the tariff cost is borne by the customer and the seller and it will vary by industry.
Correct, but the Rabbit Hole goes deeper.
The company will only reduce margin if they expect to lose volume and if they expect that they can regain sufficient volume by reducing margin to make up for the loss in margin.
And the reduction in volume will only happen if there are alternatives for consumers, including the alternative to not buy.
When consumers need the tariffed good regardless of price, the company will not reduce margin.
(Yeah, it’s complex math).
Long story short, someone else said it better, a tariff works well, with little impact on consumers, when there is a comparable non-tariffed alternative.
At the other end of that spectrum, i.e. an essential good with no non-tariffed alternative, the tariff cost is fully borne by consumers.
Finally, in the case of TSMC, their main product right now are the most advanced AI chips for which there is no US alternative. And US Big Tech needs volume that the US cannot produce.
Trump is basically taxing big tech.
It makes a lot of sense if the government money is now his own money
Yes, but the goal of a tarrif is to create incentives for onshore investment and development to come it at a $1.50 price point. We, in general, have moved past that by using subsidies to not create issues for the economy in the short term.
They can say the goal is whatever the fuck they want it to say. The important thing is the outcome, and we know how this turns out.
I think “the purpose of a system is what it does” is going to get a lot of use this administration
We tried that already, it didn’t work. The Taiwanese teaching us how to make them said Americans were too lazy to learn, and the Americans said the Taiwanese were insane.
The CHIPS act passed in the US does help with this. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we’re trying to move some of their manufacturing over here. Which is desirable anyways because it puts them beyond Chinas reach.
Still that process will take a decade so no luck anytime soon
Just when you thought he couldn’t get any dumber. Advanced microchips are one of the highest in demand commodities in the world. TSMC will have no problem selling them to the rest of the world outside of the U.S.
Actually, they already signed up to teach us how to make them, and their plants in the US are already being built. This was Biden idea, Trump is just taking credit for it.
Yeah, we’ll be able to build usable chip factories here in the states in no time. That surely doesn’t take several years to get set up.
Especially when the dumbass halted the CHIPS program which was intended to do precisely that thing.
And they have to buy the machines for this in Europe, anyway.
