[HN Gopher] US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel...
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US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure
tariff relief
Author : voxadam
Score : 232 points
Date : 2025-08-05 17:44 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.notebookcheck.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.notebookcheck.net)
| duxup wrote:
| This whole economy by corruption and coercion is not going to
| work out.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I don't see how it can't work at least short term, when the US
| is by a long margin the world leading military and economic
| power.
|
| Why else has the US been overspending on military for decades
| and planting military bases and nuclear submarines all over the
| world, to become the world hegemony, if not to bully everyone
| in doing its bidding when push comes to shove?
|
| I'm not defending the actions of the US, I'm just asking what
| are the other countries gonna do about it? Ally with Cuba,
| China, Iran and Russia to fight the US? Unlikely.
|
| UK, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland are 5 eyes members and
| therefore lapdogs of the US, and the EU as much as they dislike
| the US due to Trump, has a laundry list of urgent domestic
| issues like Russia, no cheap energy, no high growth industry
| like tech, ageing population, economic stagnation or even
| decline, collapsing welfare and pension system, illegal
| immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism leading to
| crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship leading to
| further social and political turmoil. So how is the EU gonna
| retaliate when they can't even keep themselves together?
|
| What can they do now, when the US holds all the cards? Their
| only hope can be that the US collapses from internal issues,
| just like the Roman empire, but until then, they literally have
| no screws to turn on the US and just like the EU, Switzerland,
| etc, are forced to accept the terms of the US or have their
| already fragile economies suffer even more.
| nemomarx wrote:
| China seems to be working on catching up, and if you remove
| all of your soft power maybe they look more attractive?
| exasperaited wrote:
| Oh and TSMC is on an island they claim is their own. Great:
| an Intel that has TSMC as its largest single shareholder is
| essentially wholly under the thumb of the State Department.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > Great: an Intel that has TSMC as its largest single
| shareholder is essentially wholly under the thumb of the
| State Department.
|
| They already are. The US defence industry buys from them
| no matter what. Which is why the US needs to ensure their
| survival. The concern isn't that Intel survives or not
| (the US would prop them up no matter what), but that they
| also remain on the cutting edge and the US doesn't lose
| out if, say, Taiwan falls to China.
| notahacker wrote:
| Absolutely. Everything the OP mentions as a reason to
| continue trading with the US is also a reason for Europe to
| trade more with China. Historically the argument for _not_
| doing that is "look at their _very different values_ and
| how they _bully and threaten their neighbours_ , and
| remember that if you do business there _their government
| will happily crush you with its arbitrary power as soon as
| you step out of line_ and even at the import /export any
| trade deals they do make will be them _openly trying to
| screw you_ " The US isn't exactly in a strong position to
| continue making those arguments about why the world's other
| superpower is different with a straight face.
|
| The US doesn't need to be cut out of world trade altogether
| (it won't be obviously) to lose a lot at the margin, with
| the chief beneficiaries ironically being the country the
| current US administration most hate...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| More than what? Europe trades a tremendous amount with
| China in the status quo. The argument you mentioned is
| real, but the EU never subscribed to it in the first
| place; they've consistently stated (e.g. https://ec.europ
| a.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEM...) that
| trade with China is very important and they have no
| interest in decoupling, although they'd like to lower the
| trade deficit.
| notahacker wrote:
| Well yes, and so does the US. But Europe has certain
| significant restrictions on trade with China in sensitive
| areas, and levies its common external tariff on Chinese
| imports. China would love those restrictions to be
| removed and to get a broad trade deal. And other
| countries that consider themselves broadly aligned with
| the West have considerably less decision-making inertia
| than the EU
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't think China would love to get a broad trade deal.
| Analysts in both Europe and the US generally agree that
| the Chinese government cultivates unbalanced trade as a
| matter of policy. (Indeed, one of the things that's
| supposed to happen as part of the US-EU "trade deal" is
| joint action on metals to counteract persistent Chinese
| overcapacity.)
| notahacker wrote:
| A broad trade deal would be unbalanced in China's favour;
| they manufacture more and at lower cost. But the US isn't
| exactly selling the message of being the better partner
| right now.
| teamweightloss wrote:
| Europe is not going to trade more with China, if
| anything, they want to trade less with China, if you look
| at the recent events.
|
| - Europe signing trade deal with US
|
| - China: We can't afford for Russia to lose Ukraine war
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-cannot-lose-war-
| ukraine-09.... In other words, China is attacking Europe
| via Russia.
|
| - China is in a great depression. Their only economic
| engine is export, and Europe is steadily putting up
| tariff walls.
| vkou wrote:
| It won't work out because the people in charge are the
| dumbest motherfuckers imaginable. They are utterly convinced
| that every one of their stupid ideas is brilliant, that they
| know everything, and that the way forward is to liquidate
| anyone who has the audacity to say 'no' or 'you're wrong' to
| them.
|
| That's not the roadmap to good management of anything, as
| literally anyone who has ever worked a job will tell you. How
| people can see an amalgamation of all the traits they despise
| in a peer or leader that they actually have to interact with,
| and go 'oh yeah this guy should be running the entire
| country, this will end well' is mindblowing.
|
| The empire can run on fumes and momentum... for a while. No
| company or country is so exceptional that it can survive
| enough mismanagement, eventually you burn through the
| furniture, and piss away whatever lead or competency you had.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I'm not sure they're convinced that every idea is
| brilliant. They're convinced that they have to convince
| _everyone else_ that every idea is brilliant, because if
| they don 't, everyone else will wake up and realize that
| many of their ideas are in fact not all that bright.
| vkou wrote:
| I don't think at this point it's safe to say that they
| are actually playing 3-dimensional chess. There is plenty
| of evidence that indicates that they are stupid enough to
| believe their own bullshit.
| wrs wrote:
| It seems like the tariffs are at least one-dimensional
| chess. The supposed rationale for the numbers was widely
| ridiculed, but now it's clear that the numbers didn't
| matter as long as they're large. The tariffs have no
| rational basis as tariffs, they're just a convenient
| stick for extortionate demands like this one.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| > _I don 't see how it can't work at least short term, when
| the US is by a long margin the world military and economic
| power._
|
| The 90s were ~30 years ago. American economic and military
| capacity ain't what they used to be, and alienating your
| allies and friends is starting to look like a poor strategy.
| neves wrote:
| USA spends more in their military than the rest of the
| world combined. Also the only country which used nuclear
| weapons of mass destruction. You must fear them.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| The US' playbook in 2025 is that they were the high
| school bully who was also the quarterback scoring four
| touchdowns in a single game.
|
| There are other ways to assert power other than how big
| your nuclear arsenal is - Japan did just that by
| threatening to offload their US bonds only two months
| ago, and Europe's trade negotiators will outclass Trump's
| B-Team.
|
| The world has moved on from "I have lots of nukes".
| couscouspie wrote:
| > Europe's trade negotiators will outclass Trump's B-Team
|
| Hardly matters. As long as von-der-Leyen remains head of
| commission the European Union stays devoted to the US no
| matter the consensus of commission, parliament, national
| governments or the people.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| The US spends more on _everything_ , those numbers need
| to be cost adjusted for "cost of a rifle for America v
| cost of a rifle for China", but never are.
| duxup wrote:
| No magic that keeps your businesses efficient or running if
| the government is picking winners and using tariffs. Quite
| the opposite.
| exasperaited wrote:
| It will not work out over the long run. This is corruption;
| it breeds corruption, and corruption creates victims. Victims
| don't put up with it forever and as the old cold case appeal
| spiel goes, "alliances shift over time".
|
| More prosaically, in the short term: TSMC are now effectively
| compelled to acquire Intel entirely or at least a controlling
| share, right?
|
| Unless Trump's shakedown requires them to own 49% but then
| bans them from owning more than 50%, which would be the end
| of the USA as any sort of free market -- and I concede that
| is possible, because the USA now has a leader who acts more
| and more like an autocrat -- aren't TSMC essentially
| compelled by their own interests to find the just-greater-
| than 1% somewhere?
|
| If you're blackmailing me into owning almost all of something
| but _not getting control_ of what I owned, I think the
| logical next step is to forcibly gain control, yes? Because
| it turns the tables.
|
| Not least because acquiescing even to buying 49% paints a
| target on my back.
|
| Trump is not saving Intel: he is guaranteeing it is going to
| get broken up and sold off. He is destroying it. (More to the
| point he is immediately tying its existence to the success or
| failure of his own Asia-facing foreign policy, which means he
| is effectively asserting control over it)
| paganel wrote:
| TSMC is not going to get over the 50% threshold because it
| has no free will in this whole matter, as the very
| existence of Taiwan, and hence of TSMC, depends on the
| political will of the US.
|
| Otherwise I fully agree with you, this will definitely not
| work out in the long run, but who cares about the long run
| anymore in this day and age?
| exasperaited wrote:
| But they have to _try_ , right? Otherwise as you say,
| they are essentially operating under Rubio and Trump's
| control as a tool of the State Department.
|
| The other important thing about this is that it dirties
| Intel almost immediately with presidential cheeto dust.
| So the value is going to fall over the long term, and
| this isn't the last sell-off they will have to do. Can
| you stop TSMC or a stalking horse for TSMC buying up
| parts of the rest?
|
| Trump has created a powerful victim here.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Why would China annexing Taiwan have any direct effect on
| TSMC ?
|
| I'd imagine they would be happy to have TSMC still
| selling to NVidia, Apple and AMD, and therefore a
| powerful lever in case of future US export controls/etc.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| because even without deliberate sabotage a war in Taiwan
| would shut TSMC down for at least a decade. Changing the
| toilet paper supplier can drop yield by 20% until they
| sort it out. How do you think a warzone will affect it?
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| TSMC built a fab in Arizona that in 2 years was up and
| running delivering chips to Apple, so it doesn't take
| that long ...
|
| Obviously a protracted or nasty war would have a severe
| impact, but it's hard to see why China would want to harm
| TSMC, even if worse case for US they stopped them from
| exporting.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| you're assuming way less action from the US than there
| would actually be. it's not about the exports, it's about
| the supply chain to supply a fab. they need euv machines,
| wafers, thousands of specifically sourced chemicals etc.
|
| it's not about what China wants, it's just not feasible
| to operate a fab in a warzone
| ben_w wrote:
| The US margin on economic power isn't all that great, by
| GDP/PPP it's a long way behind China.
|
| Though from the POV of economic coercion, the question is
| probably more like "what's the USA's import/export market
| like relative to all my markets including domestic?", which
| is going to vary wildly by industry.
|
| > Ally with China, Iran and Russia to fight the US?
|
| Replace Iran with the EU, and yes, some or all of them.
|
| > EU as much as they dislike the US, has a laundry list of
| urgent domestic issues like Russia,
|
| Urgent, but affordable.
|
| > no cheap energy, no tech industry,
|
| Energy isn't meaningfully worse than anyone else, lots of
| tech but it's mostly local rather than global in scale
|
| > ageing population, economic stagnation or even decline,
|
| Like everyone else, including the USA
|
| > collapsing welfare system
|
| News to me. Also: Wasn't the USA's supposed to collapsing
| since Obama took power?
|
| But also, not a unified welfare system over all member
| nations of the EU.
|
| > illegal immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism
| leading to crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship.
|
| Is it, or is that a narrative? And specifically, is it doing
| this worse than the USA today?
| neves wrote:
| US is a lot richer than China. GDP/PPP does not count the
| number of citizens.
| ben_w wrote:
| If per capita was what mattered, the US would be
| kowtowing to each of Luxembourg, Singapore, and Ireland.
| The US does not, because "per capita" isn't as important
| as "per government".
|
| The mean wealth/income per person in the USA is indeed
| higher than China.
|
| So what?
| oezi wrote:
| When all your military spending can't help you win against a
| third-world country (USA in Afghanistan) or a single country
| 1/3 your size (Russia in Ukraine), it really makes you wonder
| if all that spending is justified to uphold one big bluff.
| vaidhy wrote:
| Winning is different from taking over.. Russia wants to
| rule over Ukraine, not destroy it.
|
| US was all into destroying Afghanistan and Iraq. They had
| no intention of being there long term.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Russia wants to rule over Ukraine, not destroy it.
|
| Can't it be both? It's hard to argue they aren't trying
| to destroy it. It has been attempted in the past during
| the Holodomor.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
| vkou wrote:
| The context of post-civil war stalinism and
| food/industrial policy was a little different from modern
| Russian empire-building.
|
| Russia's end goal here is a cultural genocide.
| duxup wrote:
| I'll nitpick here and say that Russia's plan was more
| likely to topple the government and put a puppet in place
| and then leave, but they botched that.
| watwut wrote:
| Russia destroys its colonies. It wants to destroy
| ukraine. And it wants cultural genocide.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| We aren't pointing "all our military spending" against
| Russia in Ukraine. Not by a long shot (no pun intended).
| notahacker wrote:
| Of course not. But I think it's also true to say if the
| US hasn't been willing or able to effectively use its
| military power at the margin to stop a historic enemy
| from annexing its neighbours with impunity, your average
| regional power doesn't have to worry about the US using
| its military power to dominate world trade.
| Alupis wrote:
| Nothing will change in the US if Ukraine falls tomorrow.
|
| People love to cry foul when the US flexes it's might...
| then cry foul when the US takes a back seat... literally
| cry foul no matter what the US does.
|
| If Ukraine is so important to the world order, why has
| Europe (you know, Ukraine's actual neighbors) not stepped
| up with their full military power? Why is Europe not
| threatening troops, missiles, aircraft, tanks, etc...
| even nuclear obliteration if Putin doesn't yield? Why is
| it the US has to swoop in, from half a world away, and
| save the day (again, and again, and again...)?
|
| The US is not currently willing to send our citizens to
| die in Ukraine. Maybe Europeans should?
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > The US is not currently willing to send our citizens to
| die in Ukraine
|
| The US is currently not wanting Ukraine to win for a
| single reason - it's personal to Trump. So much has
| happened that we've collectively forgotten that it was
| Zelensky said "No" to Trump on the phone when wanting to
| find any dirt on Joe Biden helping Hunter in business
| deals.
| Alupis wrote:
| > The US is currently not wanting Ukraine to win for a
| single reason - it's personal to Trump
|
| That totally explains why Biden kept slow-walking support
| packages...
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Nothing will change in the US if Ukraine falls
| tomorrow.
|
| It certainly will when Putin moves on to invading Poland
| or Finland. The whole point of holding the line at
| Ukraine is because everyone believes Putin won't stop
| there.
| hvb2 wrote:
| Just to state a fact.
|
| Article 5 of NATO (an attack on one is an attack on all)
| has only been invoked once, by the US. So why did NATO
| members send their militaries to Afghanistan?
|
| The real reason is that most conflicts never happen. Or
| are resolved before ending in a full war. Either the US
| or a European NATO country sending in troops would muddy
| the conflict so much that the risk of escalation is huge.
| coryrc wrote:
| > People love to cry foul when the US flexes it's
| might... then cry foul when the US takes a back seat...
| literally cry foul no matter what the US does.
|
| There's a difference between the US invading Iraq and US
| aiding a country being invaded.
| Alupis wrote:
| > US aiding a country being invaded
|
| Why can't the Germans send troops into Ukraine? Or the
| Brits (for all their grandstanding and bluster)?
|
| Why must it be the US?
|
| If "everyone" thinks Putin isn't going to stop with
| Ukraine, then it would seem Europe has an existential
| crisis to deal with - not the US, thousands of miles
| away...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean we rolled over Afghanistan the problem is fighting a
| war "humanely". Hard to accomplish anything with both hands
| tied behind your back. Just like in Vietnam the USA's
| ability to wage war is only limited by what it's local
| population thinks is "fair".
| msabalau wrote:
| The Bush administration was looking to "win" in the
| Afghanistan by doing nation building, which was never going
| to work, and certainly wasn't going to be accomplished by
| military means. Obama and Trump both chose to kick the can
| the road, to not pay the political cost for "losing", Biden
| ended the conflict, and paid the political price.
|
| But if the US had a different objectives, every human
| settlement in Afghanistan could have have been radioactive
| ash by September 12, 2001. Or, more realistically, the US
| could have gone in, killed all (for some value of all) the
| local elites as a warning to leaders elsewhere about the
| costs of harboring terrorists, and then immediately left
| the country in the same sort of chaos that they eventually
| did a couple of decades later. Kabul delenda est was always
| accomplishable.
|
| The only people who should be ashamed of the their
| performance in Ukraine are the Russians, and the Europeans,
| for failing to be able deter or respond to the Russia on
| their own despite having an economy five times the size.
|
| US interests are perfectly well served by seeing the
| Russian military mauled for a generation at the cost of
| aid, much of it material that was going to be
| decommissioned anyway, that costs roughly what Americans
| spend on golf in a given year (Once you throw in the costs
| of drinks on the 19th hole.)
|
| Anyway, US arms sales are up since the start of the
| conflict, Russian sales have cratered.
| csomar wrote:
| The Soviet Union overspent on military, so much that lots of
| its military equipment is still present today: https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/List_of_main_battle_tanks_by_c...
|
| If anything, it shows the opposite of what you are saying.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > What can they do now, when the US holds all the cards?
|
| Negotiate and follow through in bad faith, because there's no
| upside to acting in good faith when the opposing party is
| pursuing a lose-lose agenda.
| fooker wrote:
| It has historically worked pretty well, for several centuries
| at a time.
|
| Are you saying there's something different this time ?
| duxup wrote:
| I don't know what you're thinking of.
| exasperaited wrote:
| Well, I am British and have studied a tiny bit of my own
| country's history... so I do.
|
| But consider who in the world really loves the British. You
| don't need much time to make a list. Or even a paper and
| pen.
|
| The main difference between the British Empire and the
| American Empire is that the American Empire is being led by
| a man who believes tariffs are a tax on foreign countries
| and retail prices can be cut by more than 100% and remain
| positive.
| ben_w wrote:
| > and retail prices can be cut by more than 100% and
| remain positive.
|
| I've missed this story. Can you elaborate?
| nemomarx wrote:
| It's not much of anything - Trump said he would get
| pharma prices down 500 percent or such.
| exasperaited wrote:
| He said it more than once on more than one occasion
| though. Which, as with all these things, means either:
|
| - this is his wonky understanding (and he is pretty
| famously innumerate)
|
| - he's saying it as a power game despite the pushback
| because people around him feel they have to smile, agree
| and retcon stuff to make it believable
|
| Or indeed both.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I do kinda expect he saw the number on a paper and has
| latched onto it, personally. I doubt he can interpret
| tables or charts.
| exasperaited wrote:
| The most charitable explanation is that -- because as a
| malignant narcissist his grasp of past, present and
| future is really kind of broken -- he's talking about
| _reversing hypothetical gains_ , and because the numbers
| sound big he doesn't care that it doesn't make any sense
| to the listener, and his team will twist themselves into
| pretzels to make it true anyway.
|
| (I haven't yet heard them make the claim that he means
| reversing gains, but I would expect them to. Heck if it
| was my job to make his Truth Social messages make sense,
| that is what I would say.)
|
| But honestly his grasp of fractions and percentages has
| long been known to be worse than early era ChatGPT.
|
| The most worrying aspect of the Trump era for the markets
| should be that he treats numbers as entirely flexible
| according to his mood, when the market needs them to at
| least be consistent.
|
| But then they knew this before he was elected the first
| time; he is famous for admitting he assesses the value of
| future business at any time based in part on how he feels
| about it (which is reminiscent of the way Musk assesses
| future valuations, future delivery dates for full-self-
| driving, future sales of robots etc.)
|
| So it's not a political thing at all. He hasn't always
| been a Republican but he _has_ always been like this with
| numbers, and anyone who has ever subjected his words to
| any kind of scrutiny should know it.
| exasperaited wrote:
| How is that Tiktok forced sale going though?
|
| The longer Trump creates a legal black hole carve-out for
| Tiktok, the less anyone will want to buy it. Because he is
| and this action is transparently corrupt, and it taints the
| buyer.
|
| And that is true of the participants of _any_ of these forced
| transfers; they paint targets on their back for future
| manipulation by the Trump executive. (Which increasingly
| feels like it should be described as a regime)
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| Something working well* (at least for well-connected people,
| relative to the general populace) when world GDP was two
| orders of magnitude lower does not mean it works well (for
| the general populace) today.
| xyst wrote:
| The economy of "corruption" and "coercion" is Neoliberal
| Economics 101. Send your regards to pseudo economic theory from
| the Chicago School of Economics (ie, Milton Friedman); and to
| Reaganomics/trickle down economics.
| olalonde wrote:
| Both Friedman[0] and Reagan[1] were strongly opposed to
| tariffs and most forms of government intervention in the
| economy. Hard to imagine either of them supporting the
| current administration's policies.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv5SiQpG6sg
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFMyB8WMuDU
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Literally the opposite of reality. Not sure how it's possible
| to get this so backwards
| coreyh14444 wrote:
| Banana Republic shit.
| duxup wrote:
| I honestly expect that if things go bad enough we will get
| Trump on TV live at the white house berating his cabinet
| members and firing them like the farce you got with Hugo
| Chavez.
| saalweachter wrote:
| ... is that not a thing that already happens?
| davidw wrote:
| Mostly not, because they are all 100% on board. They have
| shown cabinet meetings where they all take turns
| effusively praising him in the most sickeningly
| sycophantic way, though.
| quesera wrote:
| Wait, are we still talking about North Korea?
| saalweachter wrote:
| He went through a half dozen attorneys general, because
| they wouldn't do what he wanted, and the thing driving
| the stock market crazy lately is the persistent rumor
| he's about to fire the chair of the Fed, whom he
| appointed.
| neves wrote:
| Perhaps we'll see him humiliating a head of state live.
| tremon wrote:
| Like he tried to do with Zelensky?
| silverquiet wrote:
| "You're fired", was indeed his catchphrase for the farcical
| reality TV show he stared in portraying a competent
| business owner.
| tremon wrote:
| But why on TV? Didn't we basically see that happen with ol'
| Musky on Xitter?
| davidw wrote:
| Just last week, the director of the Bureau of Labor
| Statistics was fired because the jobs numbers didn't look
| good and that upset the person in charge.
| xnx wrote:
| I've heard this described as the coach firing the
| scoreboard after they lost the game.
| throwawaylaptop wrote:
| Or was he fired for getting it wrong first?
| mandevil wrote:
| So first of all, Erika McEntarfer is a she.
|
| Second of all, revisions are incredibly common with BLS
| numbers, it's normal. They are trying to balance accuracy
| with speed, and this is how they do that.
|
| They survey about 50,000 companies out of the 12 million
| registered US companies. Since the pandemic, response
| rates on their surveys have gotten worse. It is now about
| 50% at the end of the first month, slowly rising to about
| 90% two months later, so they update their results as the
| surveys get completed. The waiting is especially
| important because the speed of survey returns turns out
| to not be randomly distributed, the bigger the business,
| the faster it returns a survey, so small businesses are
| more likely to respond later. The BLS attempts to counter
| for that in their initial reports by inflating the small
| business returns that do come in early enough to account
| for their under-reporting, but the later returns are just
| incredibly valuable for getting accurate data.
|
| Even with all of that, under normal economic
| circumstances revisions generally are small (they exist,
| but generally they cancel out thanks to the BLS inflation
| of the small business numbers, some of the businesses are
| higher than expected, some are lower, it all cancels
| out). Large revisions, either up or down, are generally
| associated with the economy changing course (lots of
| small businesses miss in the same direction, pretty good
| sign that the economy is changing)- large revisions down
| are often seen as a leading indicator of a recession, and
| large revisions up are often seen as a leading indicator
| of an economic improvement.
|
| This is all true at least in the previous regime, where
| the BLS was trusted to be non-partisan. That reputation
| has definitely taken a hit; we will have to see how much
| trust remains in that organization going forward.
| antonvs wrote:
| Pro tip: don't parrot government talking points if you're
| not familiar with the issues.
| platevoltage wrote:
| "he"
| throwawaylaptop wrote:
| Does it matter who it is specifically? And does it matter
| if it's a man or woman?
| platevoltage wrote:
| It doesn't matter, it just shows how grossly misinformed
| you are.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Rome Republic is over, time for the Roman Empire.
|
| The surest sign of it will be the DJT running for the 3rd term
| sdsd wrote:
| The Roman Empire began with a corrupt Senate murdering Caesar
| for being a dictator. Based on Rome's history, the surest
| sign would be for JD Vance to murder Trump, declare democracy
| saved, and then Trump Jr to become emperor of NATO.
| slt2021 wrote:
| I have a feeling that Barron will be the one running, when
| his time comes, not jr
| araes wrote:
| The article pretty much says it right in the opening section
|
| > investing a further $400 billion in the US alongside buying a
| stake in Intel seems improbable from a purely financial
| standpoint
|
| TSMC's entire assets are ~$200,000,000,000 [1] (cash,
| inventory, accounts receivable, land, buildings and equipment.)
|
| Buying 49% of Intel ... maybe. Intel's outstanding Market Cap
| is current ~$88,600,000,000. (4,377,000,000 outstanding shares
| [2] @ 20.26 8/5/25 midday price [3]). Double TSMC's entire
| assets is a bit extreme.
|
| Notably, Intel's valuation also seems kind of nonsense. They
| made $13B in revenue last quarter. 2024 yearly was $53B ... on
| a market cap of $88B? Intel's been a mess lately, yet their
| valuation's also kind of a mess. If they ever stop bleeding
| money on operating profit and net income they won't look that
| bad.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC
|
| [2] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-
| activity/stocks/intc/instituti...
|
| [3] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/intc
| csomar wrote:
| They are $50bn in debt.
| j_walter wrote:
| What part of any plan they have had tells you they are likely
| to stop losing money any time soon? They are basically
| selling for asset price right now...because the market
| doesn't believe they are worth more than their assets.
| Gud wrote:
| No plan, but wouldn't be the first time a juggernaut is
| turned around.
| j_walter wrote:
| Wouldn't be the first time they became obsolete
| either...and I think even with the US governments help
| they are too far down the drain to come back.
| achempion wrote:
| Why would they buy exactly 49% and not 51% of Intel? If these
| extra 2% are not available, why buy 49% then and not just
| 2-5%?
| bathtub365 wrote:
| They don't want a successful foreign company to have a
| controlling interest in their failing domestic company
| tremon wrote:
| Is your "they" the same as the parent's "they"? Seems
| like you're talking about different parties.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They want to ensure that TSMC doesn't have a controlling
| stake.
| sct202 wrote:
| The remaining 51% would be highly fractured unless it was
| like the US government on the otherside. One of the
| publicly traded companies I worked at effectively got
| taken over with <20% of regular shares by an activist
| billionaire.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Ya, they would have to make their stake non-voting
| regardless, then what would be the point? I don't think
| Trump thought this through.
| rwmj wrote:
| They could do the China[1] / EU[2] strategy of announcing
| they'll do it, but never following through with it. When your
| opponent has the attention span of a drunken gnat, it's a
| surprisingly good strategy.
|
| [1] https://archive.ph/sAFWP
|
| [2] https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/fossil-fool
| cyphertruck wrote:
| That money will be provided via a loan, from the US
| Government, at a reasonable interest rate. USG doesn't lose
| money, TSMC gets to expand into all of Intels fabs (when they
| raise the money to buy a controlling interest in INTC down
| the line.)
|
| Or the entire thing can be done by a stock swap, with whoever
| diluting themselves however amount is necessary, etc.
| newsclues wrote:
| Been working for a long time just like that though.
| duxup wrote:
| The amount matters a great deal IMO.
| newsclues wrote:
| Visibility is the difference.
|
| It happened before, and perhaps even worse (more competent
| people were corrupt).
|
| Now, people are just making it public.
| duxup wrote:
| The existence of any corruption really has nothing to do
| with the amount. The amount matters.
| lazyeye wrote:
| This is how China has been operating since forever. They don't
| seem to be doing too badly.
| duxup wrote:
| This is one of those situations where much like manufacturing
| jobs in the us ... that's not what I want. I don't think most
| people want that.
|
| I don't think becoming China would be a success.
| rchaud wrote:
| Who knew "Running America like a business" had so much in
| common with the Chinese Communist Party? Banning books,
| blocking access to websites and apps, protectionist tariffs
| to support local business and now forcing foreign competitors
| into joint ventures with failing local companies.
| ModernMech wrote:
| The through line is authoritarianism. Whether it's Chinese
| communist authoritarians or American fascist
| authoritarians, the result is corruption.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China forced 49-51 JVs. But Intel is a public company, not a
| JV.
| tsol wrote:
| Are they? But Silicon Valley is in the USA and not China. I
| would imagine the legal and business environment has
| something to do with that.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm convinced that this is all what it looks like to live
| through the end of an empire (or whatever term you'd like).
|
| I think our lives are short enough that it can be easy to
| perceive something like America as "always was, always will be"
| and the rest is just trivia you learn in history class.
| exasperaited wrote:
| > I'm convinced that this is all what it looks like to live
| through the end of an empire (or whatever term you'd like).
|
| It feels to me like it's more like the _beginning_ of an
| empire, in the sense of existing under an emperor.
|
| > I think our lives are short enough that it can be easy to
| perceive something like America as "always was, always will
| be" and the rest is just trivia you learn in history class.
|
| I think it very interesting that one of the things the USA is
| going to have to grapple with, in the middle of the most
| contentious presidency in its history, is the
| semiquincentennial of independence itself.
|
| The bicentennial of independence in 1976 was I think largely
| an uncontentious thing even though the Vietnam conflict had
| ended only a couple of years beforehand and the presidency
| was in the hands of a guy who had taken over the job from,
| and pardoned, a crook who was forced to resign.
| Internationally people were pretty kind and generous to the
| USA.
|
| I don't think anyone, anywhere on the planet, is prepared
| diplomatically for how it will play out this time. Next year
| is going to be a heck of a year.
| nosignono wrote:
| The US president has been an emperor in all but title for
| generations at least.
| exasperaited wrote:
| I think this will have been news to Biden and especially
| to Obama, who didn't even get the deference about the new
| suit.
| nosignono wrote:
| If you think Obama wasn't overseeing an empire, I don't
| know what to tell you. Maybe you should ask the people of
| Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya
| about the US drone strikes there.
| exasperaited wrote:
| Oh, that isn't what I mean, and I am willing to accept
| your view. (And I was joking a bit anyway)
|
| What I mean about the _beginning_ of an empire is, as I
| said -- the beginning of a true individual, not simply
| unitary, emperor. That the executive is transforming into
| _l 'etat, c'est moi_, which no US president has had the
| luxury of _ever_ before, because Congress wouldn 't ever
| have handed over the influence and authority they had.
| antonvs wrote:
| This could still be turned around, with some luck and effort.
| But it won't happen if the voters don't get out of frog-
| being-slowly-boiled mode, clinging to normalcy bias.
|
| So in the end your assessment is probably correct. It's
| probably going to be a long, slow decline though.
| nosignono wrote:
| The collapse of an empire is correct. USA is absolutely an
| empire, and we're _clearly_ seeing unprecedented contractions
| and spasms of our government as it ineffectually attempts to
| govern while doing everything it can to foment civil
| agitation.
| cyphertruck wrote:
| This isn't corruption or coercion. This is a deal. These are
| terms being offered. They can say no, or counter. But these
| terms benefit all parties-- TSMC can eventually buy out intel,
| get lots of top end fabs, bring their superior processes to
| those fabs and meet the huge demand in AI chips-- that they
| currently can't grow fast enough to cover. ASML machines take
| years to build... a better TSMC process on existing ASML
| machines in Intel fabs is an easy %30 win for the entire world.
|
| Plus, china kept at bay, peace increased, intel's bad
| management gets to bail out saving face, TSMC gets rewarded for
| their hard work, Trump gets a win, Intel's employees get better
| management, and get rich from their stock options winning
| hugely....
|
| Capitalism is where everyone wins like this.
|
| Even china, because china loses if it goes to war, but china
| feels it has to go to war.
| ldoughty wrote:
| I'm kinda of shocked that chip & many tech companies play ball..
|
| They are a required / no alternatives industry by so much of the
| USA, with limited alternatives. Is it really more cost-effective
| for each of these companies to spend hundreds of billions of
| dollars to avoid tariffs when they could easily pass on these
| costs because we have no alternatives?
| assword wrote:
| > they could easily pass on these costs because we have no
| alternatives
|
| Now imagine the same scenario, but one side is willing to
| destroy themselves as collateral if they don't get the result
| they want.
| duxup wrote:
| I think people in power are pretty fond of non democratic
| systems, they like them. They make friends and get favors. Far
| easier than competing.
|
| And what's the alternative for many of them? Lawsuits?
|
| SCOTUS has quit doing their job. The checks and balances are
| out the window. There is no leadership / anyone in power at the
| national level when it comes to democracy in the US at this
| time.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Honestly, this is a win-win for TSMC.
|
| Intel isn't dead. They've made some bad choices and investments
| but they're still huge. They have $30 billion in gross profit
| per year on an utterly boring, non-hype based business model.
| Get rid of some dead weight, write off the bad investments,
| improve their foundry business and their value easily grows
| multiples of what it currently is.
|
| On top of it already being a shrewd business deal, doing a
| favour for the US government also potentially buys protection
| for TSMC and Taiwan from China. Plus the immediate tariff
| relief.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| If it were a win-win relative to their other options, they
| wouldn't have to be forced into it. They may have been able
| to make the best of it, but let's not pretend value is being
| created.
| ldoughty wrote:
| But the US government has proven to be unreliable in
| maintaining commitments -- even words on paper are
| meaningless as it doesn't seem to stop them from changing the
| deal later and demanding more ("I have change the terms of
| our agreement, pray I do not alter them further"), and then
| another request demanding more. Would TSMC be doing the
| government a favor and gaining protection, or are they being
| extorted? ("would sure be a shame if we doubled your tariffs
| again...")
| throwup238 wrote:
| Does it really matter? Does TSMC have a choice either way?
|
| They're a globally important company but they're not ASML
| and they're stuck between two superpowers and the threat of
| potential total war. They've had the misfortune of being
| sucked into geopolitical maelstrom and those tides are far
| too strong for any company to resist.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Does it really matter? Does TSMC have a choice either
| way?
|
| Sure. Go home and make chips. Pass the tarrif costs on to
| customers. Would US customers have a choice?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Taiwan is too dependent on the USA ATM to make that
| choice. If they were to go it without the USA, the only
| choice would be to become an actual bonafide province of
| China, they aren't going to exist on their own. Almost
| everyone else outside of eastern Asia, however, can make
| a different choice.
| throwup238 wrote:
| EUV was developed with in a Cooperative Research and
| Development Agreement between the US Department of
| Energy, Intel, ASML, and so on - giving Congress control
| over who ASML sells the EUV technology to.
|
| So yes, US companies do have a choice. They can lobby
| Congress to cut off TSMC from their main hardware and
| parts supplier entirely, crippling it altogether, except
| for their Arizona plant which is ripe for nationalization
| for natsec.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I think there's reason for the EU to ensure that there's
| no semiconductor manufacturing monopoly.
|
| So the EU offering something like nuclear weapons sharing
| a la that which Germany etc. would probably be reasonable
| if the US bullied Taiwan too hard. But I don't think it's
| happening, I think people want good relations with China.
| Fade_Dance wrote:
| Intel is not profitable. They have negative eps and negative
| free cash flow. The cash flows from existing products can't
| be considered in isolation. If their R+D and Capex
| investments stopped, the sum total of the existing+legacy
| cash flows wouldn't nearly cover Intel's substantial
| liabilities.
|
| They also have 50 billion dollars in debt, and their cash
| flow situation has gotten so desperate that slices of future
| fab revenue have been pawned off to private equity, who now
| has a senior claim on the assets (as do the bondholders).
|
| An equity stake and Intel is not something that a TSMC would
| want without coercion. It's just not a very attractive place
| to be an equity holder.
|
| >Get rid of some dead weight, write off the bad investments,
| improve their foundry business and their value easily grows
| multiples of what it currently is.
|
| As if it was that easy. The company has now been through
| multiple CEOs attempting to mix up these ideas in various
| ways. The last CEO tried to do a Hail Mary to improve the
| foundry business, but the balance sheet can't support it. Now
| the new CEO is essentially writing off those investments and
| putting them on the back burner. Considering that, getting
| rid of the dead weight will be difficult, considering the
| company itself is largely dead weight... The quality of their
| employees is not good, or at least not nearly at the level
| that needs to be (18A yields are alarmingly low, and that's
| the critical product that basically determines the company's
| future. 14a is already looking more and more distant despite
| it being the purported savior not even a year ago).
|
| Realistically, their financial situation puts them right at
| the precipice of needing to shed the fabs, and/or permanently
| continue down the path of more Brookstone-like partnerships
| where they can spread the burden (which then caps the equity
| holder upside).
|
| There is nothing "easy" about the current situation. Maybe
| without the 50 billion in debt, but nearly all of remedial
| paths are running into nasty balance sheet constraints.
| There's no more room to spend quarters rejiggering the thing.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > Intel is not profitable.
|
| Did I say they were? Google gross versus net margin.
|
| > If their R+D and Capex investments stopped, the sum total
| of the existing+legacy cash flows wouldn't nearly cover
| Intel's substantial liabilities.
|
| You sure? https://www.intc.com/financial-info/balance-sheet
|
| Current assets are $43 billion. Total assets are $192
| billion. $30 billion yearly in gross profit. Debt is only
| $50 billion. They still hold 75% market share. Repeat, they
| still sell 3 times more chips than AMD.
|
| Yes, their balance sheet isn't as good as some fabless
| competitors but if TSMC helps them with their 14a yield
| then it looks like a good investment.
|
| Also, having TSMC on board will surely help with their fab
| business. Again, between the US government needing them to
| survive, TSMC on board, plus the fact they still do have a
| decent core business, I think Intel (and TSMC's investment)
| will be fine.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| It's actually better than that. TSMC wouldn't help intel
| with their 14a node. They would kill it, fire all of
| Intel's foundry R&D, and just build TSMCs 14a node.
| dismalaf wrote:
| I mean, it's the same thing... So yes.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> doing a favour for the US government also potentially buys
| protection for TSMC and Taiwan from China. Plus the immediate
| tariff relief.
|
| They already built fabs in the US. The thing about protection
| money is the bully keeps asking for it again and again.
| btian wrote:
| I don't know if any of that is true. Even if it's true, why
| TSMC?
|
| Will Apple, AMD, and nVidia continue to trust TSMC if it owns
| half of Intel?
| dismalaf wrote:
| > Will Apple, AMD, and nVidia continue to trust TSMC if it
| owns half of Intel?
|
| It doesn't matter because none of them have much choice.
| None of them own fabs and Samsung's capacity is
| significantly less than TSMC's. Plus Samsung also designs
| chips.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| >I'm kinda of shocked that chip & many tech companies play
| ball..
|
| Have you heard of this story?
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/qwest-ceo-nsa-punished...
|
| The only telecom in America to resist turning on a domestic
| eavesdropping firehose tap for the government, was pounded to
| the edge of bankruptcy.
|
| Intel and TSMC are both strategically important and favored-
| status corporations for the going concern of the United States,
| and large swaths of the federal appartatus are invested in
| their success, contracts, global projection, etc. That comes
| with a price. Naive to think they are independently operated
| companies.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| Bernie died in prison because he didn't want to give them
| access to Worldcom so the story goes.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Bernie was released a month before dying. Don't ask me how
| I had this fact in the back of my head (I looked at
| Worldcom and Enron a few weeks ago for another HN story).
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > The only telecom in America to resist turning on a domestic
| eavesdropping firehose tap for the government, was pounded to
| the edge of bankruptcy.
|
| How so? There was no mention of the government taking action
| against the company to cause the company to fail. If a
| company is failing without government contracts, that is on
| them and not the government.
| duped wrote:
| Because they know that Trump is full of shit and a personal
| bribe in millions of dollars with some public copy of a public
| bribe of billions (that will never happen) will get him off
| your back.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > when they could easily pass on these costs because we have no
| alternatives
|
| The administration has made it clear they will take such
| actions personally.
|
| The USA by and large figuratively controls the world. All of
| Europe is one step away from a protectorate and if Taiwan
| doesn't want to conquered by China they need the USA in the
| way.
|
| If the USA ever sours on the relationship it means China will
| take Taiwan so they do whatever they need to do to appease the
| USA.
| platevoltage wrote:
| After pretty much every company with a public profile threw
| money at Trump's inauguration fund, this doesn't surprise me at
| all.
| melling wrote:
| Intel only up 4%. Seems unlikely.
| brokencode wrote:
| Fortunately for TSMC, Intel really isn't worth that much anymore.
| $50B doesn't seem so bad, and maybe it could lead to a deep
| partnership and sharing of tech and factories.
| analog31 wrote:
| It seems like we're forcing the rest of the world to print
| dollars.
| herbst wrote:
| A swiss news paper wrote something along "so far the main
| effects seem to be the rising prices of Swiss goods in America,
| not really a falling market"
|
| He is threating Switzerland with 250% tariffs on meds while his
| people still suffer under horrendous health care prices. That
| man is beyond crazy
| nly wrote:
| If tariffs really raised money in the way Trump pretends then the
| US government could surely just grant Intel a direct share of all
| tarrif revenue raised from sales in to the US from Tawain?
|
| Of course the reality is you're just taxing Americans to
| subsidise Intel at that point, since tarrifs are a tax on
| Americans and not foreigners.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Taiwan is under a tremendous pull by China, both non violent and
| violent. Any push by the US is a push towards China.
|
| Trump has no idea what he is doing. HE can not replace Brazilian
| coffee, but at least it is "only" coffee. Not being able to
| replace a fab is a precarious situation.
|
| Is he imagining invading Taiwan? China would consider that an
| invasion to its territory.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think Trump cares if it "works" economically long term.
| He cares about what he can extract personally and what he got
| upset about on twitter when he woke up. That's it ...
|
| He was quoted regarding environmental concerns something to the
| effect of "I'll be dead by then".
|
| I think that's really his POV. If you plan to live longer than
| Trump, he's really not for you.
| taylodl wrote:
| I'd tell the bully "no deal" if I don't get controlling interest,
| and thus full control of the board.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| As much as I'd like to see bullying firmly rebuked, I'm not
| sure that approach would work here.
|
| Because even if TSMC managed to get that initial deal, they'd
| still be at risk of Trump revisiting it.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I'm not sure anyone but Intel is against that. Both US parties
| are most likely furious that the CHIPS act was a massive waste
| of money. TSMC would love to outright buy a massive US presence
| with valuable IP. The US desperately needs Intel to turn things
| around to remain a strategic advantage. Only Intel in their
| cesspool of hubris would want to keep the status quo of
| mediocrity.
|
| But TSMC, please please please, get Intel out of Oregon. I'm so
| tired of that loser state holding back companies from reaching
| their true potential.
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| "If we pay the Dane, certainly he won't ever come back for more
| Danegeld."
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Tariffs kinda make sense when you have a deficit in a widely
| available item. Big trade deficit with Bangladesh? Sure you can
| buy cheap textiles from Thailand or Vietnam or something.
|
| Unfortunately this approach does not work when you lack a viable
| domestic alternative and you're up against a monopoly.
|
| What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made
| chips? Obviously that is impossible, so the logical conclusion is
| that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs.
| ezst wrote:
| With this administration, it's probably just more blackmail, in
| the form of "it would be a pity if nobody came to the rescue
| when China eventually puts its Taiwan plans in motion! (Not
| that playing ball is a guarantee of anything either)".
| bit1993 wrote:
| > it would be a pity if nobody came to the rescue when China
| eventually puts its Taiwan plans in motion!
|
| Wouldn't that just mean that Taiwan has to choose between two
| villains, and China can take the advantage of this by
| changing its narrative and taking the position as a hero,
| protecting Taiwan from the US.
| jfengel wrote:
| Taiwan really, really does not want to be part of China.
|
| Or rather, they see themselves as the legitimate government
| of China, which is undergoing a temporary Communist junta.
| The separation was _extremely_ violent. I mean, you saw the
| Three Body Problem.
|
| The US fosters this, to retain a toehold there. Taiwan
| doesn't exactly love us for it, but they know which side
| their bread is buttered on.
| wahern wrote:
| > they see themselves as the legitimate government of
| China
|
| No, they don't. But formally renouncing that position[1]
| makes them officially secessionist in the eyes of Chinese
| conservatives, adding pressure to invade. The One China
| fiction matters, though how much it matters is definitely
| up for debate. But it's a local minima, and rolling the
| dice comes with significant risk.
|
| [1] At the state level. AFAIU, it's been renounced by
| several of the major parties in Taiwan, and when in power
| they've made movements at low levels of government that
| arguably contravene the policy. But it still remains the
| official position and its still enshrined in the
| Taiwanese constitution. And, yes, the US adds pressure to
| maintain the status quo as it would (might?[2]) be on the
| hook for the defense of Taiwan. But the majority of the
| population isn't in favor of formally renouncing it,
| either; the potential negative consequences are
| existential, and the material benefit is slim to none.
|
| [2] During Trump's first term it was claimed he privately
| admitted that if China invaded Taiwan he wouldn't
| intervene.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| This isn't blackmail. A security guarantee has value. Exactly
| what value is hard to say since the US is the only credible
| seller of such guarantees in this world order
| krior wrote:
| *the US WAS the only credible seller
| throw9394944 wrote:
| Until you change president... Iran made several security
| deals with US...
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Like with Ukraine? Like with Iran? The US has proven its
| word is literally worthless and beholden to the whims of a
| dictator.
|
| At this point, Taiwan would be foolish to not start working
| on a secret nuclear bomb program. North Korea has proven
| its the only way to _actually_ protect yourself.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Yep. Nukes for Taiwan is the only solution.
|
| Nuclear proliferation and subsequent war is inevitable
| imo.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I'm pretty sure giving nukes to Taiwan would be seen as
| an act of war by China.
| cnst wrote:
| Whose security are we talking about here, though?
|
| Wouldn't the value of the security guarantee in this
| scenario be a negative one for Taiwan?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31012442
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35171512
| Dr4kn wrote:
| Every promise of this administration is worthless, so why
| even bother? Either they protect you, because they don't want
| the chip tech to fall to China or they don't.
|
| Buying half of Intel isn't going to change anything
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The meta of Trump mercurialness is convincing
| counterparties they should do whatever they can to make him
| happy, even on unrelated matters.
|
| I think it's a braindead, 4th-grade way to run
| international negotiations, but it is a way.
| xyst wrote:
| > ... American consumers will end up paying the tariffs
|
| This has always been the case. I have never heard of a company
| absorbing tariffs on behalf of consumers in the day and age of
| "trickle down economics".
| duxup wrote:
| So far indications are many companies are eating the tariffs,
| for now.
|
| Even making them visible has drawn the ire of Trump a few
| times already.
|
| But I generally agree that it can't go on forever / not how
| it works historically.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Eating the tariffs by firing workers means more out of work
| with less purchasing power and prices _are_ going up too.
| It 's fail all the way down.
| snarf21 wrote:
| A lot of them are "eating" them in the margins of the
| unreasonable "inflation" increases they used to see how
| much the public was willing to pay for their products.
| (Normally, this would be okay in a functioning capitalist
| market except we've let way to many companies gain a
| monopolistic position with no real market competition to
| force a reasonable middle ground between profit and elastic
| demand.)
| cnst wrote:
| I'm actually surprised that some prices are even lower now
| than they've previously been.
|
| I don't think most people actually have a solid
| understanding of what is and is not affected by which
| tariffs.
|
| If I understand correctly, most of the tech stuff is
| effectively exempt; and Canada/Mexico tariffs don't apply
| to most items that are covered under "the rules of origin"
| certifications under USMCA (the successor to NAFTA).
|
| I think the biggest hit has been the elimination of the de
| minimis rule, which now makes it difficult and/or
| impossible to get anything directly from China by USPS, be
| that cheap clothing or small electronics.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think companies know what is affected and when...
| except when the invoice comes. The tariffs have been a
| moving target, some announced and never occurred.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| > Not buy TSMC made chips? Obviously that is impossible
|
| Why do you think that? Trump clearly wants them to use Intel's
| 18A which is likely similar to TSMC 2 year old N3P, which is
| not an impossible option.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| The same 18A that their CEO is axing?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/intels-
| new-...
| tester756 wrote:
| 18A is not getting axed, they'll use it.
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| That's 14A, not 18A, and it's not being axed, but
| questioned in what appears to be a game of chicken.
| fh973 wrote:
| Them? Nvidia and AMD? RTX 7xxx would then be based on an old
| Intel process? Would buy these?
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I would buy that if I could get it in 30% lower price.
| Rohansi wrote:
| Just buy hardware that's a few years old and you'll
| basically get the same thing.
| MBCook wrote:
| All of Apple's stuff?
|
| even if Intel's processes worked just as well, there's no
| way they have the capacity to take over for all that stuff.
|
| We'd be back in a huge shortage.
| _hyn3 wrote:
| What would TSMC do if they couldn't sell chips to the USA? It
| cuts both ways, like most trade negotiations.
| MBCook wrote:
| Is "don't buy stuff with TSMC chips" really a valid option we
| have?
|
| Isn't that basically "stop buying high technology" to a large
| degree?
| 1over137 wrote:
| Sell to the other 95% of humanity I guess.
| tw04 wrote:
| >so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end
| up paying the tariffs.
|
| That's been the point all along... they are significantly
| raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too
| stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for
| the wealthy somehow.
| nosignono wrote:
| It has nothing to do with stupidity. Stop painting people as
| idiots because they exist in one of the most information
| hostile environments in human history.
|
| This isn't some natural state that's unrecoverable. The
| people you describe have been given a highly addictive media
| environment _tailor made_ to engender outrage and drive
| behavior. It shouldn 't be a shock when most people cannot
| resist it. The first step to changing it is not writing them
| off or insulting them for being had.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Just like how overweight and obese people are "victims".
| Allow me to laugh.
|
| At some point it is the individual. (I recently lost my
| COVID kilos, 10-15kg. Was easy. Stop drinking beer. Skip
| meals. Then again adhd brain makes it easy loll xd)
|
| At some point the Trump voters need to suffer.
| tw04 wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with stupidity. Stop painting people
| as idiots because they exist in one of the most information
| hostile environments in human history.
|
| No. Someone refusing to spend 30 seconds understanding how
| a tariff works is the result of an idiot. My 10 year old
| figured out how they work in under 5 minutes. There's
| literally no excuse for a grown ass adult to refuse to
| educate themselves on the subject.
|
| "This media environment" doesn't prevent them from typing
| "how do tariffs work?" in their search engine of choice and
| reading the first result.
| hx8 wrote:
| I just googled "How do tariffs work?" I got hit with
| several college level vocabulary words describing tariffs
| in both the AI summary and my first result. It might be
| less of a problem, if we had adequately funded schools.
| slg wrote:
| The full AI summary from DuckDuckGo for "How do tariffs
| work?"
|
| >Tariffs are taxes imposed by a government on imported
| goods, making them more expensive to encourage consumers
| to buy domestic products instead. The costs of these
| tariffs are typically passed on to consumers, resulting
| in higher prices for imported items.
|
| I don't see any "college level vocabulary words" and it
| directly says that it makes goods more expensive and the
| costs are passed on to consumers. Maybe Google's
| complicated answer is part of the "media environment"
| being criticized.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _What is a tariff? A tariff is essentially a tax
| imposed by a government on imported goods. When a product
| crosses a country 's border, the importing company pays
| this fee to the customs authority before the product
| enters the domestic economy._ (start of Google summary)
| cnst wrote:
| I'm guessing Google has a "be accurate" as its prompt,
| whereas DDG has a "be ducky"?
| mattbillenstein wrote:
| In a way it kinda does though - like definitely the
| information ecosystem distorts things, but some people do
| not have (or do not exercise) the critical reasoning skills
| to decipher what's true from what's not. Or what issues are
| actually important from those that are meant to just
| distract - not everyone can tell the difference and see how
| the incentives actually point to what's going on. reply
| DiddlyWinks wrote:
| At this point they're not "being had." They are
| deliberately and belligerently ignorant. It's way past time
| to stop giving anyone a free pass on supporting this
| malevolent clown.
| bsoles wrote:
| Those people may not be innately stupid in the sense of not
| being able to learn or understand things. But they have
| been rendered functionally stupid by the media, propaganda,
| and politics. I actually find that state quite
| unrecoverable.
| roenxi wrote:
| "Stupid" seems like a pretty fair way of describing that.
| If someone watches media that outrages them, misinforms
| them then causes them to make stupid decisions then the
| consequences are very much on their head. It is well know
| that the people peddling strong outrage are basically
| scumbags in it for the money and not the sort of people who
| should be listened too if you want to achieve long term
| success (which is mostly the domain of trusting optimists).
|
| There are a lot of high quality media sources out there
| that don't promote outrage.
| dfedbeef wrote:
| It's what they call everyone else (shrug). Why mince
| words.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with stupidity.
|
| In addition to being rude, its not a particularly clear
| word.
|
| So I have coined the term "antididact", to more
| specifically describe the problem of people who resist
| learning or being taught, in circumstances like this.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| If there's one product we have domestic alternatives to it's
| semiconductors. We're a couple nodes behind TSMC. Using US only
| foundries or paying a premium for TSMC is not the end of the
| world.
| J_McQuade wrote:
| More people need to hear this. Similar argument when they
| tried to stop China from buying certain types of silicon -
| "Oh well... anyway!".
|
| I am not American, nor am I Chinese. Both of those countries
| have the capability to make enough compute to do whatever the
| hell they want. I am, however, European...
| DiddlyWinks wrote:
| Really? I was not under the impression that we had anything
| truly competitive. Could we make an iPhone, for example,
| using only U.S.-made chips?
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| We couldn't make an _iPhone_ because apple would refuse to
| cooperate, not because of a technical limitation. We could
| make a similarly capable phone though.
| robertjpayne wrote:
| iPhone performance and battery life would likely slide
| back 5-10 years if Apple was forced to use Intel chips
| instead of TSMC today.
|
| Not just that, the raft of features that may have to be
| disabled until that performance and performance per watt
| gets back to where it is today.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| It's about time we tariff Apple as if it's a Chinese
| company anyway.
| saltcured wrote:
| I fondly remember my weird Razr-i with an Intel Atom CPU..
|
| I can almost imagine we would have more trouble getting
| domestic phone screens, but I'm not doing any research to
| validate that gut feeling.
|
| I think the biggest problem would be whether we could
| automate assembly enough to avoid having high labor costs
| on each unit
| lanthissa wrote:
| tsmc(taiwan) will blink for the same reason europe did and
| japan did, and for the same reason india and brazil did not.
|
| when you take a step back and look at the deal breakdown, this
| is protection money not a trade negotiation.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes it's a tax on consumption and when applied to everything
| the same way it's essentially a VAT. The admin keeps telling
| that EU will pay, India will pay but at best they can do is to
| weaken their currency so the goods become cheeper and it
| compensates for the tariffs US importers pay.
|
| Arguably, US consumers are super consumers and maybe it will be
| better for everyone if Americans consume a bit less? I don't
| think that it should be necessarily bad for business, maybe
| it's time to switch to world building instead of consuming,
| maybe as so many people works so hard we as species should
| gradually move on to use our output for longer and enrich our
| lives with each new tool instead of consume more and more and
| keep working the same or more. Eastern Europeans are or used to
| be a bit likte that, have a slow paced life, have low GDP
| output, on paper economy and everything is bad but actually
| have a great life if you have a house with a garden and some
| stuff you bought 30 years ago and still functioning good
| enough.
| croemer wrote:
| There's no problem with having a trade deficit against one
| country. There's no need to balance each country, just as
| there's no need for people to have no imbalance in daily
| exchanges. It's as if you were going back to a barter economy
| where there was no money.
| Supermancho wrote:
| The baseline of no trade deficit between all countries and the
| US makes no sense, since countries are not uniform in resource
| or production. eg Lesotho/Bangladesh won't achieve a trade
| balance with the US when they produce what the US wants and
| don't consume enough to balance it out.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah9SrbCB7-k&t=1147s
|
| Let's say this was the starting point. Almost immediately, this
| strategy of trade balance was dispensed with, leaving most
| countries with some random tariff rate that wasn't
| strategically decided.
|
| Many recognizable countries, specifically the ones that the
| administration targeted for political reasons, ended up with
| adjusted tariffs based on politic. This was due to the
| administration figuring out they had overstepped or thought
| that they were too soft, when the influence wasn't effective.
| When it became clear the economics were being ignored, Trump
| called them some epithet that meant "unreasonable" and
| abandoned the tariff tactic in all but rhetoric.
|
| What was the point? The most predictable sequence of IMMEDIATE
| events were likely the point. I believe the point was to try to
| convert the global crises (political, economic, and social)
| that existed around the world to purely economic concerns for
| simplicity. This was paired with jamming up the entire global
| trade system, which would allow the administration to listen
| for the squeakiest wheels. It was supposed to be an efficient
| way to prioritize immediate problems such that the
| administration would not have to learn about and weigh all the
| problems in the world.
|
| Short and long term, the tariffs have accelerated the de-
| dollarization of the world economy, they has amplified income
| inequality, and have destroyed supply chains across multiple
| sectors. The replacements are necessarily less efficient (value
| is cannibalized by tariffs). It was a lazy and poorly
| considerer tactic, but it might have achieved the goal, given
| my assumption of purpose.
|
| The issues that were raised to the administration were largely,
| left unsolved. The most prominent of which are the Ukrainian,
| Taiwanese, and Palestinian fronts and the weakening of the US
| hegemony due to trade conflicts. The good trade relations with
| traditionally friendly nations have been damaged, long term.
| Canada, India, China, most of the EU have made moves to
| distance themselves from the US chaos. Some strange side
| effects, like this weird buy in to american companies is a side
| effect of the show, rather than a specific intent. I can
| concede it wasn't all bad. The US did see some new corporate
| inroads into a few countries. Notably concessions from Mexico,
| who was willing to meet the US goals in achieving a trade
| balance (more or less).
|
| Overall, it's possible the tariffs succeeded as a self-serving
| tool of the administration, but failed in serving the US as
| policy. Maybe I'm just wrong, but maybe Trump is just this
| simple minded and his administration is playing into the
| fallout, as it advances their 2025 goals (or whatever).
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Unprecedented rapacity by the United States - not only forced
| tech transfer, and then having to pay for the privilege of being
| robbed; the hegemon is consuming its vassals, as it withdraws
| from its commitments.
| phkahler wrote:
| Well China has been forcing tech transfer for 30 years now.
| cmdli wrote:
| And China is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of
| the Western world. I'm amazed that the US is following suit.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| why you acting like this is bad thing????
| const_cast wrote:
| Because nobody can explain why its a good thing????
| phkahler wrote:
| Trade deficits are bad. See Greece a while back.
| Herring wrote:
| Look at Intel's history. Concentration of power (monopoly)
| generally leads to corruption/abuse and stifled innovation.
| It's bad _even for the monopolist_.
|
| The second China becomes powerful enough to throw their
| military around like the US is when I start supporting tech
| transfers the other way. A more distributed power structure
| is much better for overall progress.
| threatofrain wrote:
| > The second China becomes powerful enough to throw their
| military around like the US
|
| This would be late timing.
| Herring wrote:
| Go look up "world's happiest countries 2025". There are
| lots of places that are absolutely thriving despite not
| having the biggest guns (and perhaps because of it).
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China is on a path to having the biggest guns anyways (I
| totally expect them to pass the USA in military power in
| my lifetime).
| thorncorona wrote:
| Unsurprisingly, this correlates with antidepressant
| usage.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| This is setting up TSMC to also fail. As for Intel, it still will
| fail anyway.
| phkahler wrote:
| On the surface, buying 49 percent of Intel wouldn't infuse the
| company with any capital. It would just bail out investors.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| "Heads I win, tails you lose" combined with "I'm altering the
| deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." This is what passes
| for American diplomacy these days apparently.
| cyphertruck wrote:
| It actually wouldn't. The sale price will be pretty close to
| the current market price, maybe %10 more. If the Government
| kicks in funds to underwrite the deal (say a loan to TSMC) then
| the deal would likely happen exactly at market price.
|
| That means investors who sell are getting the current low
| market price or a little bit higher--- they will still be down
| the massive amount.
|
| This is really bailing out current management-- letting them be
| replaced by the more capable TSMC people and getting an attaboy
| for helping the US government strengthen the alliance with
| Taiwan, keeping peace in the region.
| delfinom wrote:
| But TSMC isn't a design house. Intel has both fab and design.
| TSMC's management could only help out on the fab side.
| xyst wrote:
| If US steps in to buy a troubled asset such as Intel after
| failing to convince TSMC to buy, this country is cooked.
|
| Did we learn _nothing_ from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis?
| Let them fail.
| duxup wrote:
| I think 2008 showed ... how it works.
|
| The unfortunate part is that the GOP has now repealed whatever
| protections were put in place on banks after that.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| when I read "how it works" I assume you mean that it was a
| success? bailing out GM in the way they did pushed their
| novel vehicle platform technologies to fall to the wayside
| and for them to refocus on combustion. New brands were on the
| horizon, there was a hope for a new modern vehicular order
| but the midrange of the market was squatted by GM's
| insufficient vehicles. I don't think 2008's bailout worked,
| at all.
| nemomarx wrote:
| It worked for GM, and therefore for the politicians who got
| favors and influence from doing it, etc. A particular sense
| of "worked".
| leptons wrote:
| >Did we learn _nothing_ from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis?
| Let them fail.
|
| 2025 says "hold my beer"
| antonvs wrote:
| If by "we" you mean anyone in the current administration, the
| answer is an obvious no. Learning is not their thing.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Didn't we _not_ let industries fail during that time? How about
| the Big 3 bailouts and the emergency infusions for banks? And
| these actions decidedly helped save our economy.
|
| Whether it's good from a moral perspective or a long term
| perspective I guess is another matter, but I suspect if the
| government hadn't stepped in, we'd still be in the throes of
| the subprime crash even today. This is speaking as someone who
| is deeply anti-corporate.
| wmf wrote:
| This is akin to letting all US banks fail and then saying we'll
| just use foreign banks for everything. Intel is a strategic
| company for the US.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| The government made a shit ton of money from 2008 by not
| letting them fail and buying preferred shares. Hell fannie mae
| and freddie mac throw off tons of cash for the government to
| this day.
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Trump's tariffs forced a historic trade deal between Japan,
| China, and Korea, three countries that historically hate each
| other. If Trump managed to accidentally force Taiwan and China to
| settle their differences, it might be a sign of the rapture.
| Herring wrote:
| > It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's
| friend is fatal.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Post the rest of the quote
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| isn't that just monopoly???
|
| idk how we got to do this, like single producent of high end
| chips is not good for everyone
| jokoon wrote:
| China said they are going to invade in the next 5 years or so, so
| TSMC might agree to anything, but that goes a bit too far
| molticrystal wrote:
| I understand the push to build fabs in the US to avoid tariffs,
| as the US likely sees this as a strategic hedge for the global
| chip supply in case China disrupts Taiwan or Japan, or some other
| rare catastrophic event occurs.
|
| Whether it is correct or not, Trump seems to view the US as a
| larger version of Mar-a-Lago, so he'll always feel he can charge
| a premium for access to its consumer base and market while
| offering discounts to those he sees as ingratiating themselves.
|
| But it is supposed to be a free market that should reward
| efficiency and competence, not prop up companies that don't have
| their act together. If the goal is domestic chip production,
| funneling funds to TSMC's proven fab operations and to build more
| US fabs makes more sense than bailing out Intel, regardless of
| whether it is improper to demand such concessions at all.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| TSMC tried to build fabs in US, it doesn't work, turns out you
| can't hire top PhDs and pay them 30k and tell them it's a lot
| of money
| jpalawaga wrote:
| doesn't tsmc have a 4nm plant in arizona that is cranking out
| chips today?
| Havoc wrote:
| Someone with a gun to their head is the only party that would buy
| it.
|
| Latest mindfactory data suggests that in gaming consumer space is
| now 96% AMD, 4% Intel. Seriously:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1mfu3cq/this_...
|
| And doesn't sound like their next or next next nodes are in good
| shape either
| IshKebab wrote:
| That's not how it works. The fact that Intel are doing
| abysmally is already priced in.
| tester756 wrote:
| >Latest mindfactory data suggests that in gaming consumer space
| is now 96% AMD, 4% Intel. Seriously:
|
| That makes you think that this data is representative?
| Havoc wrote:
| Mindfactory is widely used as proxy because its pretty much
| the only public data source on this that publishes monthly
|
| If you have a better source I'm all ears
| bangaladore wrote:
| I just bought my first AMD chip in years (a 9950X3D), the last
| one I had was from the early FX series. After how poorly those
| FX chips performed, I swore off AMD for a long time.
|
| Ryzen definitely caught my interest when it first came out, but
| Intel still had the edge in performance and stability back
| then, so I stuck with them.
|
| That started to change with the 7800X3D, and now with the
| 97/9950X3D lineup, AMD is clearly ahead. I'm not even going to
| mention the "new" Intel chips.
|
| Funny how things shift. I'm firmly in the AMD camp now.
|
| And everyone I know is in the same boat. Probably 3-5 years ago
| Intel was the only "real" option for the people I know, now
| it's the exact opposite.
| cyphertruck wrote:
| This is like an old fashioned Civilization game trade. Taiwan
| gets a significant ownership in a blue chip US company, TSMC
| should then take %51 control over intel, and turn it around. The
| US gets a stronger position with China such that china attacking
| Taiwan would be like bombing Apple or Google. The USA will go to
| war over that.
|
| Only the willingness to go to war, stops aggressors. War is
| terrible and economic competition is the path to peace, but if
| you can't defend yourself you will get destroyed.
| Nevermark wrote:
| > Taiwan gets a significant ownership in a blue chip US company
|
| Blue chip, Intel is not:
|
| > "[...] known for its stability, consistent earnings, sound
| financials, and long-standing reputation." [0]
|
| [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bluechip.asp
| estebarb wrote:
| I don't get it. Isn't it like forcing the foreign competitor into
| buying your only chicken that produces golden eggs. I really
| don't understand the logic behind this.
| msgilligan wrote:
| Well, to be fair, Intel stopped laying golden eggs years ago.
| nevi-me wrote:
| There's going to be a lot of undoing actions that were taken
| because of an old bully who thinks the world is a celebrity game
| show.
|
| Surely tariffs for 3 more years are less damaging than buying a
| sinking ship?
|
| South African right wing farmers sold a story of a genocide and
| reverse racism, now they wish losing business because their
| exports are more expensive from the very tariffs that are a
| negotiation tactic to get their government to abolish or repel
| sine laws.
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