Yes, Mayraj has this right. As a long time trade negotiator, commentator on trade and especially on high tech trade, and as an advisor to many U.S. high tech corp;orations, and as the author of several best
selling books on trade and high tech I am fully in accord with Mayraj on this. Clyde Prestowitz From: Mayraj Fahim <fmayraj@yahoo.com>
US sanctions accelerating China chip self-sufficiency Chinese chip makers advance at expense of US and other tech exporters while Commerce Department doubles down on national security narrative On Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 08:01:15 PM GMT+5, Clyde Prestowitz via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
I do believe that the Chip subsidy to Intel benefits Intel, the United States, and the free world. I say this based on long experience
as a long time U.S. trade negotiator, student of Asian industrial policies for semiconductors, and author of several books on the semiconductor industry and the industrial policies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com>
On Behalf Of Todd Pierce via Salon
Warren shared this today while I was preparing the email below:
Money Quote: "Any buyer of TikTok will presumably have to be acceptable to a future Trump administration. So it isn’t surprising that Trump’s former Treasury secretary, Steven
Mnuchin, said last week that he was organizing a bid.
"As Bill Bishop, who writes a newsletter about China, wrote, “You could not write a better storyline for the Ministry of Propaganda if you tried.” Yesterday it was reasonably asked here, by Warren, in response to this article: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/TSMC-Intel-suppliers-delay-U.S.-plants-on-surging-costs-labor-crunch?del_type=1&pub_date=20240319120000&seq_num=3&si=22ea83e4-6174-491c-acec-f884e8773a23: "What are we giving up to bribe intel to produce in US? Does anyone really believe that this subsidy and related technical repression
benefits the US or the world? "The U.S. awarded nearly $20 billion in incentives to the chip giant Intel to manufacture cutting-edge
semiconductors in the country. The announcement, which is likely to be the largest amount given to a single company as part of
the U.S.’ CHIPS and Science Act, is part of a
broad-ranging Biden administration push to secure domestic chipmaking capabilities while restricting China’s access to advanced
semiconductor technology. U.S. officials are separately also considering
blacklisting Chinese chip firms tied to tech giant Huawei’s efforts to develop its own semiconductors, Bloomberg reported,
and are pressing allies to tighten their own restrictions on dealing with Beijing. “Failure is not an option,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters.” With an added remark by Chas: "Meanwhile
TSMC's project in Arizona seems to be foundering. The case for it was always political rather than economic. It may be nonviable.” This from my observations as a temporary (winter) resident of what is more and more a “Restricted Military Area” of data storage centers
and chip “foundries,” in addition to its vast “War Preparation Zones” going back to WW II, which the “Traditional Conservative” USAF MG Goldwater presided over in turning into a vast “military camp”; Arizona. What follows is a brief "genealogy” of the “Military Industry” origins of this program, originating under the exalted "Teflon Don,”
Trump, and the hysteria generated by his "China Hawk New Right Realist and Restrainer” allies. Instead of an “econoministic” analysis and criticism of these developments as “national industrial policy” and bad economics, which I generally agree with as well,
however, though recognizing it was such extreme “global free market” thinking, principally to begin with by “free trade” Republicans which drove so much export of US business overseas in pursuit of lower labor costs to begin with, my criticism is of the ever-increasing
militarization of the US. Economically, culturally, and in foreign relations. Which the Heritage Foundation says, in effect, echoing Universal Fascist Michael Ledeen: “Faster, please!" Having necessarily adopted Arizona as a place to escape MN winters, as I have close family members here, notwithstanding my qualms about
the water shortage issues in the Southwest, and its “Conservative” political atmosphere, to include its hawkish Democrats, I’ve paid some attention to these plants. And the massive data storage facilities here, and the “infrastructure” being built here to
house the additional workers, and the influx as well from California, etc., not to mention the massive sports facilities here, all draining what available water there is on a massive scale. I don’t doubt there’s a water shortage here as it is visible in the
water levels of Lake Mead which provides much of the water to the Southwest, and Mexico, we’re told. But that hasn’t held up the USG doing all it can to build these plants here in the SW, with the latest example Biden’s announcement
in nearby Chandler, AZ yesterday of an additional $8.5 billion in grants to Intel to expand:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/us/politics/chips-act-grant-intel.html With this a link in the above article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/business/economy/chips-act-childcare.html BLUF: "Gina Raimondo, the secretary
of commerce, describes the program as foremost a national security initiative." So a Minnesota friend also down here, a peace activist, and avid hiker as a leftover pastime from his mountain climbing days when he
was younger whom I’ve hiked with, suggested we go over to the Intel “foundry” here yesterday to see what we might of Biden’s visit. His objection to Biden’s visit included to its secrecy, and to his exclusive Intel audience with his announcement, instead of
a more public audience. So we knew it was unlikely we might be allowed to hear the announcement in person but it was an opportunity to at least see the plant. Which we did, and which is massive! Of course. And obvious to anyone who “thinks more thickly,” and
not just “thinly,” did not just begin such massive expansion under Biden. As neither current wars, like in Ukraine and Gaza/West Bank, nor massive chip plants as Intel’s is, and TSMC is intended as, are precipitated to where each is now, in a span of time
only beginning with Biden taking office. The SW is even more now something like a “Restricted Military Area,” with its massive data storage and related digital military purposes,
added to its immense military “Special Use Airspace” areas. Which not only are “controlled airspace areas,” but also “War Fighting Preparation Zones,” beyond anything any other country has today, or at least until recently, as other countries become aware
that we’re serious about U.S. global military control. As repeatedly expressed in our “National Security Strategy” documents. Especially Trump’s, which took a leap forward in articulating U.S. military aggression as a “national interest,” justifying U.S. aggression.
But here’s just a snippet of the immense territory held under military jurisdiction by the US military and therefore, its intell agencies: So much of what Trump began, was "credited” to (blamed on) Biden. Such as the mRNA vaccine Trump initiated development of, Covid shutdowns,
and US war provocations, leading directly to Feb 24, 2022, and October 7, 2023. And now “Semiconductor Self-Sufficiency" as a national (security) industrial policy: BLUF from article below: "In parallel with efforts to speed up the U.S.’s chip industry, the Trump administration is also aiming to slow China’s
down. China hawks have made headway in recent weeks in advancing more restrictions, including removing an exemption that had allowed U.S. companies to ship microchips and other advanced products to Chinese customers without seeking an export license from the
Commerce Department, provided they weren’t destined for military use."
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