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.

  • mvirts@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • krigo666@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I read somewhere that the Taiwan government doesn’t allow advanced chip technology knowledge be used in the US factory?..

      • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        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.

      • cristo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        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.

        • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Netherlands, with key components (precision lenses) made in Germany. None of this could be made in the US in reasonable time.

    • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      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.

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      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.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The guy doesn’t realize that all these companies are funding our EUV technology. If one falls so do the others. Our meaning our part. The whole EUV thing is a total ecosystem that is globally connected. The thing barely works at all according to science and people are working day and night to make it work more reliably. On top of thar, now they have to put up with less profit.

    But sure! Chips!

    Chip chip chip! C’mon! Chip chip chip!

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      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.

      • humble peat digger@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        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.

  • garretble@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      Especially when the dumbass halted the CHIPS program which was intended to do precisely that thing.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • ylph@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      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.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          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.

    • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      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.

  • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    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.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • mvirts@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Good think I didn’t throw out all those discrete transistors, we’re in for a loooot of soldering

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      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.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        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.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          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.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      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.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        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.

  • Iceman@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    First of all, who painted a target on this guys foot?

    Second of all, who left the gun unsupervised?

  • fnrir@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    […] proposed tariffs as an alternative incentive.

    He learned one word and basis his entire view on economy on it.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      He learned how to pronounce a word but only has concepts of its meaning. He still thinks the exporter pays tariffs.

  • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    Is the intent to make Taiwan just roll over and invite China in?

    Because it sure fucking looks like it.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      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.

      • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        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.

          • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            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.

      • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        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.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    The reason for doing this is specifically because it’s so damaging to the US. Surprise surprise, a government hand picked by an adversary is intentionally destructive.