Taiwan's High 20% Tariff Rate Linked To Intel Investment (notebookcheck.net)
- Reference: 0178596866
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/2230237/taiwans-high-20-tariff-rate-linked-to-intel-investment
- Source link: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Desperate-measures-to-save-Intel-US-reportedly-forcing-TSMC-to-buy-49-stake-in-Intel-to-secure-tariff-relief-for-Taiwan.1079424.0.html
> German tech newsletter Notebookcheck is reporting that the unexpectedly high 20% tariff the U.S. [2]recently imposed on Taiwan is [3]intended to pressure TSMC to buy a 49% minority stake in Intel -- including an IP transfer and to spend $400 billion in the U.S., in addition to the $165 billion [4]previously planned .
[1] https://slashdot.org/~EreIamJH
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-says-20-us-tariff-is-temporary-separate-rate-chips-focus-2025-08-01/
[3] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Desperate-measures-to-save-Intel-US-reportedly-forcing-TSMC-to-buy-49-stake-in-Intel-to-secure-tariff-relief-for-Taiwan.1079424.0.html
[4] https://pr.tsmc.com/english/news/3210
Sorry for the language... (Score:2)
But Trump is a Dick, and by extension, Americans are DIcks. We treat our closest allies like dirt.
Random perspectives from Asia (Score:3)
It's weird how different peoples in general and individuals specifically interpret Trump. I met a retired Singaporean there recently who seemed to have a lot of respect for both me (American) and Trump, and apparently believes what the administration says. But that's not the general sentiment in Asia today from everything else I've seen. The average person doesn't seem to pay much attention though; they have more pressing concerns. The exporters may be affected, but that's not the average shopkeeper here, a
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You have come up with a whole new prejudice. We do not treat our closest allies like dirt, Trump does. He is not yet dictator for life.
No sane person will follow your logic until 2028. If Trump manages to stick around or his successor continues his horrendous stupidity, then people will have the right to think that.
Until then: Keep Calm and Carry on.
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I will keep calm and carry on. However it is a fact that Trump is an attention whore who has to be in every news cycle. I remember when some Presidents were just quietly and competently running the Country in the background. Now it is just like a Reality Show with one crazy stunt after another. Maybe Trump just did this to distract from the fact he was besties with Epstein? Who knows?
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It is perhaps the other way around. The populace of Trumpistan are dicks, and their democratically and freely elected president is a representative of the populace.
How much time... (Score:1)
...until the world realizes that it is better to simply stop doing business with the US until the orange monkey is put down hard?
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Not very long. At some point he will overdo it and then it all comes crashing down. I think he is close to that point already.
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And I already noticed trumptards modding me down for saying what they can't accept.
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Yep, like silencing voices that point out facts will make those facts go away. But these retards seem to actually think that.
This seems exceptionally stupid... (Score:3)
Even if you think that just shakedowning your way to foreign investment is a cool plan; why would you want a direct intel competitor to take a major stake in the company rather than just some unrelated capital-handling outfit?
Sure, 49% isn't a controlling share; but when Intel's current problems include technical deficiencies relative to TSMC and shareholders who want more shareholder value it doesn't seem like it would take much wheedling on TSMC's part to arrange a deal that looks like a shiny little technology transfer; but essentially involves having Intel management take an ax to their R&D and engineering capabilities in order to make line go up and keep shambling on as the discount brand to which TSMC transfers some of its older or less loved processes in order to get credit for 'investment'.
It's not clear that merely recapitalizing the company would necessarily fix it; but they'd either have to try to make it work or try to chop it up for finance meat; while TSMC is probably the single best-placed company to offer it a quick, easy, permanent position of inferiority; which seems like what you wouldn't want if you are trying to preserve or expand domestic capability.
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I was listening to a podcast today about how China became dominant in the Solar Industry. Hint.... it took incentives. It seems like a much more polite to offer incentives to Intel, than to extort money out of another, friendly nation. I believe Biden did provide incentives, something like a guaranteed loan program for companies making capital investments. It seemed to be a common sense way to leverage tax money for a greater than a 10x return. I'm sure Trump tore that all down by now, but it seeme
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Incentives work for somebody that is relatively small and wants to grow. They do not work for somebody large that has succumbed to greed and arrogance.
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True. I remember back in the 90's when they were so "advanced" and dominant that nobody thought that anybody could catch up to them. They fell quickly. Now, maybe there should be a new kind of "bankruptcy", and declare that the company became "bankrupt", rotten from the top.. and it leaked down. Somehow decapitate the head, and put in place people who love technology instead of loving money. I still don't understand how they can get the same UV lights as TSMC, the same lithography, shared informat
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The thing is TSMC is a fab-shop. They do one thing and do that well. And they have customers that are smart and agile and see what it is they get. While Intel has this problem that they are their own customer, so there is no "your process sucks!" from the ones making the CPU designs to the ones manufacturing that design. For example, AMD manufactures at TSMC, because the offer makes sense. If TMSC stops making sense, they go somewhere else. TSMC knows that and that keeps them honest and cutting edge. Intel
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Of course you make a lot of sense. I thought of one possible way to re-vitalize the company, but it reeks of Communism. I listened to a podcast of a VC firm who took over a garage door company, and gave everybody there stock in the company. They also seemed how to motivate them to lower cost, and increase quality and productivity. They made everybody feel like they had a dog in the race. They increased sales 10x and made many millionaires in the process. I wonder in my dreams if this could be done
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> It's not clear that merely recapitalizing the company would necessarily fix it;
It is pretty clear, it will not. Yield, process and design issues are lack of engineering skill and experience. That cannot be fixed with money on the level we are talking here. Intel clearly is yet another case of having slaughtered the Goose that lays golden eggs. And you do not get a second one of those.
Way to achieve supply chain independence (Score:2)
TSMC's ownership of Intel foundry will give TSMC competitive advantage to make sure Intel never succeeds again.
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> TSMC's ownership of Intel foundry will give TSMC competitive advantage to make sure Intel never succeeds again.
As far as that is needed. Intel is clearly done for. They are now 10 years behind or more.
It's just a national sales tax (Score:3)
The 1% are trying to shift their tax burden on to you and it's working.
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That is what I think too, and it is how I frame it. Trump says that there is some magic wand called Tariffs that they can wave and Manufacturing will come back to America. It takes time, supply chains, maybe some really cheap labor, and expertise... None of which we have. This all boils down to a National Sales tax. He has scapegoats lined up for any perceived thing that may go wrong. The Rich are all set up to become Richer. If there is a Riot in the streets, Trump is all set up to send in the Mi
At some point this will go disastrously wrong (Score:3)
All the moves Trump is making are not informed by any actual understanding of reality. So far, the ones he attacks manage to buffer the blows and find reasonable compromises grounded in reality. But at some point this will go really, really wrong. The thing the US already lost is being regarded as a reliable partner. That will long-term mean everybody will find other partners and it also means any "promised" investments in the US will be delayed, drawn out, made half-assed or plainly will not materialize, because they will be seen as sunk cost.
But at some point, Trump's approach (which cannot really be called a "strategy") will begin to fail. The US will lose access to some really needed medication, some important tech goods, or some important raw materials, and then it will look as weak as it has become and people will stop trying to accommodate its whims. In the "small world" real-estate Trump sort-of understands, that does not happen. But on a world stage, you have one party you deal with and 100 more that carefully watch and adjust their policies. Hence one weakness and you are done bullying "partners". And since Trump does understand almost nothing, he is sure to step into it pretty soon.
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The USA has already failed, and there's no coming back. The drive away from education and the rush to "AI" out front at all costs should have told you.
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I agree. But the perception still needs to catch up with the reality.
3.5 years left (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point everyone is just going to wait until this moron is out of the office. Trump has shown to be not just clueless on how tariffs work but also completely unreliable and a bad faith negotiator. Didn't he just agree to a trade deal with the EU last week and now he's again threatening 35% tariffs on them? At least Canada had the "best" trade deal for a few years before it suddenly being labelled the "worst" by the same man who signed it and getting hit with tariffs.
It's going to be 3.5 years of damage mitigation followed by a return to sanity. But things won't go back to normal. The world will go back to sanity but without any notion that the USA can be considered a reliable trading partner going forward.
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So you're an optimist. Trump's not leaving in 3.5 years, he's dying in office.
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And even if he does, or doesn't make it until the end, do you actually think his allies and backers, and the Republican Party itself, is ever going to give the Democrats a chance to hold any kind of power again?
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MAGAs call democrat names, and they hate "woke", "trans", and all of that, but when you dig into issues, they go huh? what? duh? The Democrats have Republicans beat hands down on the issues, the MAGAs are good at repeating lies over and over again, and using degrading language against their perceived: "Enemies". Very similar to the NAZI's in the late 1920's. One sliver of hope is that MAGAs are at most 33% of the population, and they are a Minority who is terrorizing the Majority. When the Major
Re:3.5 years left (Score:4)
I'm sure many liberals, communists and moderates thought the same thing of the Brown Shirts in late Weimar Germany.
There was a very nasty surprise waiting for them. Once you gain the levers of power, and you are sufficiently motivated and unhinged from any kind of sense of obligation, decorum or constraint, you don't have to be a majority. You just have to be willing to use raw applications of power. Illegal immigrants are not the only people that are going to end up getting sent to Alligator Alcatraz. They're just the test subjects for the inevitable liquidation of all political opposition.
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Every day I wake up waiting to hear that he was found dead and bloated on his golden toilet.
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I am smellin’ like the rose
That somebody gave me on my birthday deathbed
I am smellin’ like the rose
That somebody gave me ’cause I’m dead and bloated
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Indeed. One thing that is critical in all negotiations is keeping your word afterwards. Trump has now proven to have no honor or integrity at all, so negotiating with him does not really make sense and nobody will expect to get anything long-term out of it. Hence even "disastrous" tariffs matter very little as they can be expected to be quite temporary and his threats lose credibility. The only reason we are not at a point yet where nobody takes Trump seriously anymore is because he is so utterly disconnect
Trump's not going anywhere (Score:2)
He will run again. He's making billions in bribes.
He will get the nomination. Republican primary voters think he's the second coming and the GOP has no bench because nobody wants to challenge Trump except DeSantis and people hate him.
The Supreme Court will let him run, because they're corrupt as hell.
Our entire media is owned by billionaires who won't allow anything bad to be said about hair fuhrer. I watched a dozen or so journalists dog walked for going against King Trump.
Overwhelming propa
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Let us not forget that by the law the President is not allowed to set tariff rates unilaterally outside of war and great crisis, for obvious reasons, and the entire justification Trump is making where he should right now is that the trade deficits should be considered a national emergency. [1]It's in court right now [pbs.org]
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/appeals-court-questions-trumps-authority-to-impose-tariffs-without-congress
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LOL, you think you'll remove the Trump party in 3.5 years?
You wish, but you won't.