Exactly. China has held this position for a long time. Chip plant manufacturing is a recent development. China will eventually catch up with their own manufacturing in a decade or so. They don't care about the immediate short-term - they think in decades.
Not a position they held until after ROC went to Taiwan. Then they changed their tune. Remember. PRC advocated for Taiwan independence and considered Taiwan an independent nation until around 1940s.
Taiwan today has exactly the same territorial claims as China does -- in fact, Taiwan's are more expansive, since they use the eleven-dash line instead of the nine-dash line. The difference is that Taiwan has little to no ability to project force.
(My comment should not be read as an endorsement of the CCP's willingness to force Taiwan into a reunification.)
While that is true. The people of Taiwan and the government don’t care to make claims on China. The island literally just wants to live their life. But if they tried to change their constitution and remove any claim it would be seen as an “attempt” at independence and cause China to throw a hissy fit.
Pointing this out always looks like endorsement of the CPC as it’s always a point that is pointed out as justification to claim Taiwan is part of China.
Just to be 100% clear: I think the issue of Taiwanese independence should be fully determined by Taiwanese voters in a free and fair referendum without foreign interference -- not from the US, not from China, and not from anyone else.
My previous comment was meant to provide some context. It was not an endorsement of China's stance.
Even if the desire to absorb Taiwan is ideological, they would certainly also understand the severe practical implications of losing access to their chip production.
Chinese companies seem to not have much trouble getting a hold of advanced chips, despite the embargo. There is also very elastic demand for less advanced chips despite China's efforts towards autonomy.
Exactly. Some comments here seem to imply that it's somehow good (or at least not bad) for Taiwan's national security to transfer technology to the US because Taiwan can now more credibly threaten to destroy their fabs, completely missing the point that China wants to reunify with Taiwan with or without these fabs.
It's a complete misreading of the situation; the US is in fact actively undermining Taiwan's national security, both 1) by coercing Taiwan to transfer its technology and human capital and 2) by banning chip trade between Taiwan and China.
It's a complete misreading of the situation; the US is in fact actively undermining Taiwan's national security, both 1) by coercing Taiwan to transfer its technology and human capital and 2) by banning chip trade between Taiwan and China.
Yep, but Taiwan was always a sacrificial lamb to contain China's economic rise. Unfortunately, I don't think a lot of Taiwanese people realize that. I feel sorry for them because in any military conflict, they will feel the most pain, by far.
I agree the imposed embargo re advanced chips between Taiwan and China undermines Taiwan's national security but this contradicts the earlier point that China doesn't care at all about chips.
My apologies, I should have been more clear. Here is my read of the situation:
China doesn't care in the sense that the threat of destroying fabs isn't going to factor into the Chinese leadership's desire to reunify. The issue of reunification is ideological; many Chinese people themselves view Taiwan as a break-away province.
China also does care, at least a little bit, in the sense that having access to Taiwanese chips will free up some economic resources within China itself that could be used in another strategically important industry instead. Allowing chip trade between Taiwan and China also encourages some Chinese economic dependence on Taiwan, though still not a decisive factor in whether China wants to reunify (by force if needed). But it buys Taiwan a bit more time, at least for now.
Banning chip trade between China and Taiwan weakens Taiwan's national security because it immediately removes even that smidgen of Chinese economic dependence on Taiwan (thus possibly accelerating Chinese plans for reunification), and it makes Taiwan much more dependent on the US, which has in recent weeks thoroughly proven itself to be an unreliable partner.
This was my first thought when I heard about this. If Taiwan ever looks like it's going to fall, I think that there's going to be a massive concerted effort to extract all the talent and production equipment over to America so that it's not in China's hands.
Sure, TSMC would want to do that to salvage what they can. I wonder if the Taiwanese government is as keen on that arrangement though; TSMC plants are their biggest bargaining chip, and Trump has upending the entire world order mere weeks into his term.
China was also, in slightly crude terms, an underdeveloped and weak country in 1987. Japan was right next door and an absolutely massive economic powerhouse that eclipsed China. Japan's GDP was nearly 10x China's at the time.
The US had military bases in the Philippines at the time. They did and still have military bases in Japan. Taiwan was right in the pincers of the US, and China, having all the power and development of a mid-tier African country, would have no hope of taking the country without absolutely massive losses and possibly collapsing their government.
Now China is undoubtedly the most powerful country in Asia, in terms of both military strength and economic power. They could blockade Taiwan, fire a few missiles in strategic spots, and fight a war of attrition against the import-dependent island without having to put a single boot on the ground.
Ukraine made protection guarantees with the west in exchange for giving up a key aspect of its defense (nuclear weapons). Russia had collapsed and people assumed they weren't a major threat anymore. Now Ukraine has nothing to wield against Russia and the US is saying "Give us your minerals, and not in exchange for defense. Just give us your resources." Russians are dying by the thousands but their leadership still considers it worth the cost.
Now imagine the Chinese government. They see Taiwan giving the US government their most valuable resources. They see the US government having no interest in helping countries that they've partnered with for decades. They realize they don't have to shove tens of thousands into a meat grinder to get what they want. They realize that the one thing Taiwan could wield to make the world support their cause (chips and the risk of the global tech industry falling into chaos should manufacturing be interrupted) might be moved outside their borders. Not taking advantage of this opportunity would be China ignoring a huge sign that says "It's free real estate."
There is less of a reason to defend Taiwan. Doesn't mean the US won't try. Ultimately, the US wants to use Taiwan, Japan, SK, PH to contain China.
This is to re-secure the advanced chip supply in case a conflict actually breaks out in the pacific.
For China, taking Taiwan isn't really about TSMC. It's an ideology that stems from the century of humiliation. Furthermore, once they take Taiwan, SK, Japan, PH will eventually bow as well.
Fearmongering the American public into believing that it would happen is how Trump leveraged this deal, and how he spins it to his base that he wins yet another negotiation to make America stronger. Same playbook as the Apple and OpenAI/Oracle "investment" announcements.
I think the parent commenter was actually saying that it is unlikely the US was ever going to help Taiwan in the case of a Chinese invasion, regardless of admin.
The US has not been a good partner to Taiwan, truth be told. If you browse social media that are popular among the Taiwanese, you'll discover that there is quite a bit of resentment towards the US, because they see the US as coercing them into transferring their much-needed human and intellectual capital in world-class semicon technology. (E.g. ~50% of the staff now working at the Arizona fab are TSMC engineers who moved from Taiwan, because American workers allegedly do not have the requisite skills or work ethic.) And yet the US is not willing to reciprocate by transferring its military technology.
I'm sure Trump's disastrous meeting with Zelenskyy has greatly damaged confidence among the Taiwanese. At some point more and more Taiwanese might just decide that a mob boss who speaks their language is better than a mob boss who doesn't.
"Taiwan is the United States’ 7th-largest merchandise trading
partner ($158.6 billion in total goods trade), 10th-largest
export market ($42.3 billion), and 8th-largest source of
imports ($116.3 billion), according to 2024 U.S. data (and
when the European Union is considered as one trading
partner). "
Sounds like we've been a great partner with Taiwan. Also, wanting to trade on "business I.P." would make more sense if you mentioned we're already doing around $158 billion in business with them. Each side's businesses have a lot of mutual dependence where you'd want a higher production of chips that each side could trust. We had a supply shortage with fabs not long ago, too.
Whereas, military tech is a strategic advantage we owe to nobody. They can buy it or not. I'd rather they not be ripped off in the process. Helping us make cutting edge chips here is different than giving people weapons.
For example, I'm American. I'm allowed to have business, but not military, technology. I can probably license and operate a fab. I can't buy fighter jets at all. That's despite how Harrier jets as a solution to traffic congestion could boost my personal productivity.
For the Taiwanese, their semiconductor prowess is a strategic advantage for them. It's even informally known as the Silicon Shield. Taiwan's hope/expectation that US reciprocates with strategically important technology is perfectly reasonable.
The Silicon Shield is something the US is actively trying to undermine by coercing Taiwan to transfer its technology. In addition, every TSMC engineer that moves from Taiwan to the US is someone who isn't contributing to Taiwan's local Silicon Shield. And yes, "coercing" is the right word when you are a mafia-like superpower threatening 100% tariffs -- though at this stage I am not sure why the Taiwanese should hold out any hope that the US is a reliable or trustworthy guarantor of their security.
> They can buy it or not.
Obviously Taiwan cannot. The US refuses to sell F35 fighters to Taiwan. And even countries that do buy these weapons do not have full operational control -- e.g., the U.S. has the capability to remotely disable or restrict the functionality of F-35 fighter jets purchased by other countries.
> I'd rather they not be ripped off
Taiwan is getting ripped off. 1) Delivering equipment years behind schedule as well as 2) delivering moldy dilapidated equipment are forms of ripping off your customer. And in this case America's customer is too afraid to dare offend it.
Chips are but a tiny reason the US wants to maintain the independence and integrity of Taiwan. (The same can likely sadly be said of their democracy, given the US stance on Ukraine.)
Taiwanese independence is primarily about containing China's naval power projection and their ability to keep unimpeded shipping lanes open during times of war.
China can currently be easily blockaded, and within a few weeks of such blockades, their supplies of food and energy will be put under tremendous strain. That's why it's so important to the US Navy that China does not obtain Taiwan.
Fighting a war with a superpower that has that kind of Achilles heel is much easier.
It’s a nice line to say the US cares about democracies but I think history has shown that geopolitics trumps form of government every time. The US allies itself with dictatorships when it is expedient and overthrows democracies when it is expedient.
You are right that Taiwan makes it harder for China to project its navy, but chips are by far more important now. Building fabs in the US means we don’t have to defend Taiwan, because it’s looking less and less possible.
Also, China has a huge internal border, including a shared border with Russia. Even with a total naval blockade it would only increase food and energy costs. And sanctions won’t work, they didn’t even work with Russia and China is the number 1 trade partner globally.
What do you think it can be blockaded with? Submarines... barely. Carriers are sitting ducks these days, especially since China already has an equivalent of Russian Onix missiles and launch platforms. Subs won't cover the land corridor, and they will get all they need across the Russian border if it comes to that.
China will eventually get Taiwan without firing a shot. Pretending that the US can defend an island next to a Chinese border is a pipe dream.
The Taiwan Strait is around 180 KM long, UK to France is around 30 to 40 KM in comparison. That same strait is also not safe to traverse except for two periods each year, so if they are going to invade we will know beforehand.
China needs to win this quickly, because any sort of kinetic war is going to put freeze the global economy and likely cause a mass recession, while the USA (& India) can blockade China's supply and oil chains from the Middle East beyond their force projection. Russian-Chinese infrastructure in Siberia isn't well developed and could also easily destroyed with strategic weapons from Alaska. Not to mention the sheer logistics of sending and maintaining millions of men across the strait. One missile and those troops sink into the ocean.
Trying to do a blockade on Taiwan premature isn't a good idea either, because it's conversely giving the USA the first move to organize it's forces out of harm's way, and basically turns a signficant chunk of the PLAN into sitting ducks out at the sea. Most Chinese victories are predicated on the China quickly wiping out US assets in Japan, Korea and Guam, if they don't manage to do that and fail to achieve air superiority, their troop carriers are going to sitting ducks for drones and fighters in the air.
You are missing one thing: any weapons flying into China will result in stuff exploding in New York and Washington. US carriers will be sunk, and there is no appetite in the US for either scenario.
Anyway, the whole thing won't require a single shot. The island and the mainland have close economic ties; people that determine taiwanese policy are heavily invested in China. All the tough words that are being said are for public consumption.
A regional conflict over Taiwan is highly unlikely to result in ICBMs headed for NYC and DC, because China knows that’s effectively the end of modern China. And sinking carriers would also be a very risky escalation given the ability of the US and other allies to retaliate.
I do think you’re right that Taiwan will ultimately lose without much warfare, because Trump is a world-class coward and rolls over for every autocrat who looks in his direction.
If carriers are being used to help support Taiwan in this hypothetical, they are obviously fair game and sinking them isn’t escalatory, right? We don’t get to go to war and declare the troops fighting the war off limits to retaliation.
If that was how it worked, why wouldn’t China declare all their transport boats sacrosanct?
If we think our retaliation to getting a carrier sunk would be to end the world, we should probably not use them.
Strikes by the US inside China are highly unlikely for the same reason.
As for Trump, he is simply pragmatic. Taiwan is indefensible from the military standpoint. I would not count on allies too much, because Europe's remaining 1 1/2 soldiers cannot make any difference, and the UK can barely get its ships out of the harbor.
Anyway, all of this is just a show.
Strikes by the US on Chinese military facilities are vastly more likely than ICBM strikes against civilian population centers on the other side of the world, for obvious reasons.
Then you proceed to write that China can't sink US carriers that are there to destroy Chinese ships and kill Chinese people. Next, you say that the US bombing China would not cause ICBM nuclear warheads on US cities.
So how does war work? Only one side gets to fight?
Yep. The side that sits at the keyboard of a basement computer shooting at zombies.
Here is my suggestion to people who want the US to play part in Taiwan/China affair: they should take their broomsticks and volunteer. And that includes the war in Ukraine, too.
China currently would have a serious bad time economically, cut off from intl trade. So there are options in addition to military - if there was a will. The rest of the world would have a hard time without China intl trade but probably far more survivable.
And blockade options go both ways: China could blockade Taiwan? They have more and more attack submarines and anti-aircraft missiles - which may be good enough.
Back in the day we used to add [citation needed] to statements like that.
Sure, if anyone tried to blockade continental China (coastline from Vietnam to Korea!), controlling Taiwan would be helpful, but chances are it would not really make all that much of a difference. It's not exactly Gibraltar or the Bosporus.
Unfortunately I have to agreed. Protection rackets seem to be pretty much the defining activity when Trump is allowed to run the show, but I doubt appeasement in itself is really going to buy Taiwan anything.
What's to stop him from taking the bribes and then just fabricating some of his trademark bullshit about how the Taiwanese "have been very unfair" and Xi's people were actually totally in the right all along.
The US right-wing has a large contingent that wants to pivot focus away from Europe and towards Asia.
The US abandoning European allies can be perceived through the lens of general isolationism (or even an outright support for fascism) but it can also be perceived as part of this pivot to Asia.
Time will tell. Elon Musk has so much of his net worth tied up in China, however, that I would bet more on abandonment. If Elon was out of the picture I'd bet more on support.
The US is pivoting from Europe to the Pacific precisely to better protect the likes of Taiwan. The Trump admin is filled with China hawks. Taiwan doesn’t have trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of people to fund its own defense, Europe does.
Nope. The US is doing all it can to become irrelevant geopolitically in Europe, that's not to start a war with China with a very uncertain outcome. Economic ties is (was) the really last bastion that would have motivated the US to intervene.
Wild how quickly Europe has just given up on the US after all the money we’ve spent on them for decades. We need your help (a majority of sane Americans), not condemnation. If you don’t think Trump won’t do the same to you, you’re sorely mistaken.
Maybe they were never really allies to begin with, and have waited for Europe to become complacent enough to put down the hammer in our weakest moment.
Only a fool would expect America to come to their aid now, and we'd better hide our oil/minerals lest we get a double dose of dictator-flavoured freedom...
I mean, I think you can at least understand why directly interfering with the domestic politics of a representative democracy might be challenging.
And the Europeans are helping. Trump is not getting the straight forward quick foreign policy wins that he was chasing. Europe is going to keep sticking their "European peacekeeper" (however you want to characterize it) proposal into the Ukraine mix, and Putin is going to have a hard time swallowing that deal.
When the EU tariffs come, you can bet that EU is going to try to make it sting as much as possible.
But ultimately it's up to Americans to make the best of these opportunities.
Europe can't cure American political disease. The public discourse, general political education and health of American institutions is alarmingly bad. IMO it's unlikely that these trends will stop. America is suited to isolationism and Trump type views of the world aren't going away from the US voter mindset.
I'm not from or in the US, but I was mildly hopeful about the Taiwan situation when Marco Rubio was made part of the administration, as he seems to care more about the Pacific than Trump does. I think it's still a bit too early for defeatism.
How could you? Trump declined to say he'd defend Poland or Lithuania, both NATO members, when asked by a reporter (obviously this was overshadowed by the Zelenskyy thing)...
Because putin demanded NATO roll back to 1990 borders in exchange for a Ukraine peace deal. So of course he wouldn't defend Poland or Lithuania, they won't be in NATO anymore.
Are you willing to get drafted and fight to defend Taiwan and whatever comes as a result of that? Are you willing to die for Taiwan, or have your kids die for Taiwan? Honest question.
that's I suppose the risk one is willing to take when enrolling into the army?.. You're raising though a very good point, the US army is really large and it's not clear anymore what its purpose is anymore (not against Russia anymore, not against China soon/anymore, then what for?)
Deploying the US army on US soil against US citizens would essentially be the end of the country. Whatever the outcome is would be a fundamentally different place. The military is an effective mechanism for pacifying the masses through employment.
> Deploying the US army on US soil against US citizens would essentially be the end of the country. Whatever the outcome is would be a fundamentally different place.
“And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”[1]
I don't necessarily believe maintaining a ludicrously strong military for the purposes of defending our homeland is a bad idea. Maybe I'm just being silly, but like, why would you not want the strongest military you could possibly muster to defend your nation?
Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong? But I don't think so.
I'm hesitant to even say this because it sounds so callous and naive, so with apologies in advance: how would one maintain a superior military if that military isn't involved in any aspect of combat for long stretches of time? To use a sports analogy, could you build a Super Bowl capable (American) football team if none of the players or coaches have done more than watch football on TV and played lots of flag football scrimmages amongst themselves?
(I'm wondering about this after reading today's NYT article about the escalating use of drone warfare in Ukraine.)
Between WWI and WWII, the US didn't get in any "hot practice". (Which is what I think you're talking about?) That didn't stop us from learning what we needed to know. Nor did it stop us from fielding a formidable military. The new technologies at the time were wielded by us to deadly effect. Carriers and tanks in particular. We didn't just sit around and get really good at digging trenches and moving dreadnoughts around.
The same will happen here. I guarantee you, the American military will be among the best in the world at employing the services of satellites, autonomous ordinance and surveillance, and cyber offensives.
You have concerns about our facility with drones? Be assured, we'll be able to work out how to create nightmarish swarms just as well as Europeans or Chinese can. We'll have the same facility with working with countermeasures and mitigating countermeasures as well.
> That didn't stop us from learning what we needed to know.
Actually, it did. At the beginning of its intervention, US weaponry and tactics were way below their European counterparts, even in nuclear research. The difference was made through sheer power of scale and speed of adaptation, not pre-war innovation.
In the same way, the US military is currently as good as it is precisely because it sees significant deployments very frequently (Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq), which means they learn hard lessons and develop technologies solving real problems, at a rate that no other military can match.
> why would you not want the strongest military you could possibly muster to defend your nation?
Because it comes at the opportunity cost of other things we could spend money on. For example, you could cut education to fund military even more, but it would eventually catch up to us.
We haven’t had a draft in decades, what makes you bring it up now? Are you implying that only people serving in the military should have a say in foreign policy?
Because if we go to war with China, they have a lot more people to throw at us than we have active in the military. Any slightly protracted war will require a draft. I'm sure you filled out your draft card when you turned 18 like I did, even when there was no draft. That's so if and when they needed to reinstate it, it would pick up almost seamlessly where it left off.
>Are you implying that only people serving in the military should have a say in foreign policy?
No, I'm implying before people rah rah to defend Taiwan, they actually understand what that means; it probably won't mean sending only active duty and reserves after a year or two and that a draft will most likely occur.
I do hope it wouldn’t come to that, but I also don’t think we can afford to immediately capitulate to any state with more manpower out of fear and still consider ourselves to be a world power.
If China has us completely militarily outmatched then of course we can’t afford to provoke them, but it’s not my sense that we’re ready to accept that currently.
I agree. What's the point of a massive military if you can't scare people with it? All I'm saying is we need to be careful what we wish for and understand what we are getting into. If congress thinks the population is itching to go to war, they might just get us into one (again).
Like you said, we haven't had a draft in decades. People might think we won't ever have one, and those people would be mistaken.
Naval warfare is more about hardware than manpower. American casualties in the Pacific Theater of WW2 were only ~100k dead and ~200k wounded.
The US alone would lose in that as well, because its shipbuilding capacity is minimal. But together with South Korea and Japan, it could compete against China on a level ground.
China has the ability to strike the American heartland, including naval production, in ways Japan did not.
We’re also at risk of losing strategic depth: how many more years of provocations from Washington do you think it would take a South American, Mexican or the Caribbean country to start letting Chinese drones, ships and missiles on their territory? (How confident are you in our intelligence community that this hasn’t already happened?)
Looking at current Ukraine situation, the drone pilots are a couple of kilometers behind the front. The radio range of the drones is not that big. Yes there are higher tech ones, but there are still people exposed at the front.
The phrasing of your question makes it sound like you clearly do not think Taiwan is worth defending. Perhaps a more interesting question would be - where is the line for you to consider a war is worth fighting for? Is it only when your country is being attacked and you need to defend it? If so, take a guess what WW1 and WW2 would have looked like if everyone had that opinion.
You didn't answer the question. It's easy to send other people's kids to war (see Iraq, Afghanistan). It's a different problem when you have your own skin in the game.
>If so, take a guess what WW1 and WW2 would have looked like if everyone had that opinion.
WWI Would have been merely a local conflict between Austria and Serbia. WWII would have been about the same as it was historically, if it happened at all, see previous answer on WWI.
As an aside and ironically, both Wilson and FDR campaigned on not getting us into WWI and WWII.
I suspect there are not many outside your own acquaintances willing to have their children drafted to defend Taiwan.
Just being realistic. Americans were committed to these things because leadership committed us to these things and would make it illegal for us to get out of it. Given an actual choice, not many Americans would have willingly gone to, say, Vietnam. Maybe a few brainwashed anti-communists, but the average American thought, "Hey, not my circus, not my monkeys." I suspect even fewer would be willing to go fight for Taiwan.
The average American's attitude is, "Call me when they attack Hawaii." Until that point, most genuinely don't care. That's why Trump's current moves in Europe will be applauded by his base. Because people have severely overestimated the desire of the American every-man and -woman to defend foreign nations.
You can't give people a choice. If given a choice, they'll always say no.
You either fight far away or you fight at home. The choice to fight though is not yours to make. Its the choice of the defectors of law, of Despots and murderers. You can fight them today, while they rob you with a stick or tomorrow, when they have a gun. But fight you must.
That's just the sort of macho thinking that has caused so many military endeavors to fail throughout history. Maybe the politics is about soundbites like that one? I don't know? I'm not a politician. But the actual prosecution of a military conflict is about outcomes. Not soundbites.
Will there be a good outcome or not?
I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you can think of it this way. Our past has taught us that, without question, it is best to fight far away, but only after an enemy has been weakened by others.
I know how that sounds to many non-US citizens. But I'm just being honest about how the thinking in America has developed historically.
It looks like the war in Ukraine should be beneficial to the United States. We send some surplus equipment and ramp up ammo production (jobs!) while weakening a prominent geopolitical adversary all without spilling American blood.
Letting Ukraine fall will embolden Russia who will continue their march across Europe until it is necessary to spill American blood.
Similarly we may not have a choice in Taiwan. Japan and The Philippines at least aren’t keen to have an emboldened imperialist China in their backyards. If they intervene US aid at least will be in our best interest.
Isolationism is not a guaranteed ideal strategy in all situations. Looking only at boondoggles like Vietnam, Iraq 2, and Afghanistan doesn’t mean all US intervention is harmful to the national interest.
> Some folks are born made to wave the flag - Hoo, they're red, white and blue. And when the band plays "Hail to the chief", Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
After seeing people convinced to send their children to the Middle East for more nebulous reasons, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant portion of the country can be found willing.
I’m guessing you haven’t served in the military, and aren’t really familiar with the projections of how a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is likely to unfold.
Anyone who thought we would seriously defend Taiwan is a fool. Middle America routinely makes fun of Asian people, you think they're gonna be happy to send their kids to die for them?
Counterpoint they literally already did that and we weren’t less racist in the 60s and 70s. Personally I don’t think Trump would defend Taiwan but I object to such a disregard of history.
I would not be surprised if this was in the calculation. TSMC US is currently moving quite a bit faster and ahead of what TSMC originally planned. There is a possibility that TSMC US will only be 1 year behind in node development. With the added capacity, it will accelerate transition of Qualcomm, Broadcom, Nvidia, AMD etc to Fab on US soil.
Once that is even partly done. There is no reason Trump will send US troops to defend Taiwan.
I think that the deterrent is Taiwan destroying all their fabs before the Chinese get to them. This would severely affect the _entire_ world therefore there are strong incentives to keep Taiwan independent.
The US was defending Taiwan against China long before TSMC was founded. If anything I'd worry it goes the opposite way. In the status quo, if the Chinese military can prevent TSMC from operating or prevent their products from being exported, wouldn't the US almost have to capitulate in exchange for a chips deal?
That's the old way of thinking -- they're trying to do just that across the government and without some enforcement mechanism to make them send the checks, the practical result is that the President can indeed cancel pieces of legislation via impoundment.
Example 3 - CHIPS act would have had funding withheld if a Federal Court hadn't stepped in, but it's unclear what enforcement mechanism can force the funding to resume: https://archive.is/BxjHw
Sure, but a lot of people at NIST who were in charge of implementing the CHIPS act have been fired. He definitely seems to be doing all he can to sabotage the CHIPS act without needing any congressional action.
He sure seems to be able to just terminate legislation signed into law. He already did it with USAID, and is in the process of doing it to many other departments.
You like this rule being broken? Great, good for you.
What about the other rules? The ones protecting you and the country? Is due process not valuable any more? What protects us from people with bad or selfish intentions?
Yeah, kids starving and dying of cholera.. fuck em /s
> The Inspector General also warned that $489 million in humanitarian food aid was at risk of spoiling due to staff furloughs and unclear guidance. The Office of Presidential Personnel fired the Inspector General the next day, despite a law requiring 30 days notice to Congress before firing an Inspector General.
The correct way for the government to reel in USAID would be for congress to give them less funding and to tell them specifically what they want funded. Regardless if it offends you personally, those are all lawful uses of the money and the only illegal thing that's happened here is the funding being stopped by the President.
First, I would not trust the current USAID disbursement personnel not to piss the money into the wind. I want them gone.
And it's not a question of being offended personally - these are just ridiculous expenses that cannot possibly be justified. But I am indeed offended that the amount 4x of my real estate taxes that I can barely scrape off the bottom of a barrel is being wasted on some opera abroad. If you are wondering why people vote for Trump, this is one of those reasons.
Regarding legality of funding being stopped by the President, I am not a lawyer (and I am guessing neither are you), so I am not going to take your legal opinion on this and will wait for the courts to issue the final ruling.
The fact that there’s a specific law called the Impoundment Control Act where the specific actions Trump is trying were made illegal should give you a hint to which way the court cases are going to go..
Why are you confident the Supreme Court will not declare the Impoundment Control Act an unconstitutional restriction of executive power? Or declare the only recourse is impeachment? Who do you expect would enforce the ruling you predicted?
That is surely the elephant in the room.. every time it’s been litigated before the court in the past, the Act has been found constitutional but who knows with this specific set of justices and their obsequiousness to Trump and his executive branch.
That they are senseless enough to their their personal opinions on budgeting should run the entire government, and that their little agendas are the reason everything should burn to the ground? Yes, that is why people voted for trump (they are stupid and vindictive).
And you are... smart? About half of the country disagrees with you. Trump is at power because his personal opinions happen to align with about half of the voters. I skipped voting in 2020. I voted for Trump now because what Biden's admin was doing eerily resembled the commie policies I ran away from long ago. And the "stupid and vindictive" label you are throwing around is another reason why I am likely to vote against the candidate you choose.
At least Trump is trying to do something about the runaway government spending. We can spend and spend, but at some point the treasury will not find the buyers for that paper, and that's when the lights will go out.
You can't berate or threaten people into thinking your voting or political opinions are smart/well founded. It either is or it isn't.
Watching Trump illegally destroy institutions that collectively use <5% of the federal budget, while increasing the defect, and rationalizing it as "At least Trump is trying to do something about the runaway government spending" is stupid. Straight up stupid.
Personally I am not berating anyone, it's Mr. Smart who started it. I fully accept his right to vote the way he wants, and I won't call him an idiot.
Would it be better to keep expanding those same institutions so that they started using 10% of the budget instead of 5%? They will.
As for the USAID... like I said, good riddance. Take the Dept of Education with it, too.
>Would it be better to keep expanding those same institutions so that they started using 10% of the budget instead of 5%? They will.
Are you seriously suggesting that the only way we can prevent these institutions from growing is to illegally and rapidly take a hatchet to them? Please. Trump can just not sign any bill that expands their budgets. Cutting spending can be done rationally and in a considered way, not stuff like firing people that maintain the nuclear stockpile then hurriedly offering them a job again. That damages the nation.
>As for the USAID... like I said, good riddance. Take the Dept of Education with it, too.
When the world becomes a place hostile to America and (assuming the states don't step up in education) the youth of various (poor, red) states become unemployable beyond factories, think back to these times.
Those numbers are for the wrong line items, and the WH press secretary was wrong about the source of those funds. Both of those were out of the state department budget, which (putting aside the present murky status) did not oversee USAID at the time.
What can I say... if you are correct about this (there are a lot of claims from both sides but no proofs), I hope DOGE gets its hands on the State Department, too. We have enough worthy causes to take care of inside the US.
But DOGE has been trying to do effectively that for the past month, and has been distressingly successful at it. (For all that conservatives whined about the existence of an unaccountable deep state override elected officials making laws, that's basically an accurate description of DOGE.)
This comes so often in HN it is wild. Risking WW3 and killing millions just because Samsung is 2 years behind TSMC. To save a year we would set world decades or centuries back.
