Why would Apple repatriate their cash and pay any taxes?
I don’t understand why they would care to move the money out of the countries where they earned that money and are likely to be expanding more than they are in the U.S. anyways.
Will not be great when China invades Taiwan and global supply of TSMC output evaporates as TSMC destroys the fabs to prevent takeover.
> Earlier this year, he said: "Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan. Would we be so insane as to allow the world's key semiconductor company [to] fall untouched into the hands of an aggressive PRC? Taiwanese should realize that would be the least of their problems."
> Earlier this year, the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told the House Appropriations Committee that a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan and seizure of TSMC would be “absolutely devastating” for the United States.
> She said that “the United States buys 92 percent of its leading edge chips from TSMC in Taiwan,” meaning any disruption to that supply chain would have a significant impact on the US economy
because if you look at Big Law, investment banking, or private equity, there are a lot of highly-educated Americans who are willing to work as hard as anyone on earth.
so it's got to be something about TSMC's recruiting pipeline, or perhaps what motivations the Americans who get educated for the skills they need have, rather than specifically American laziness.
TSM has found few American workers willing to work inhumane 9/9/6 hours and still not pay rent. They also cannot threaten the CCP on them.
>So likely no great loss for hem.
This I agree with. This whole tariff deal was supposed to encourage this exact behavior. Have more foreign companies setup on american soil so they can provide american jobs. So we arguably lose out a lot more on this action.
This one really doesn't make sense if you actually want to MAGA, since advanced chips is a critical area for the US to maintain leadership. China is meanwhile pouring many $billions into catching up.
The Chinese can't believe their good luck. No need for them to do anything -- just let the US self-destruct.
This mindset is the ultimate goal of all propagandists--complete and total ideological capture.
Once the propagandist has convinced their target of the other's inherent malevolence, the target will no longer seek to understand the perspective of the dreaded other. Their every statement will be viewed with suspicion.
They only say they want to make their country great, the tricky devils!
Also worth noting the 50% tariff on Chinese semiconductors (and other tech components). So US companies can’t even get low-priced imports to make their products competitive. We’re stuck with high-priced domestic labor, who are not sufficiently skilled for the work, whose companies can’t fund or complete the work, and aren’t allowed to hire and/or buy foreign. Some American dynamism…
Probably an unpopular opinion, but defending Taiwan was always a bluff. Americans aren’t going to die en masse over some random island in the pacific. We will heavily sanction China and use economic tools, but we aren’t going to start World War 3 over some small island in the pacific.
You might be right now in your judgement of what Americans are willing to die for.
However, I'm old enough to recall when America was convinced by Rumsfeld et. al. to send US soldiers in harms way -- over 4000 of them died in Iraq -- for some obscenely lucrative oil contracts.
That qualifies as "die en masse", and it was over some really flimsy pretext, which was later proved to be completely false.
You don't understand, those people were brown and the wrong religion and were easily associated with the other brown guys that killed a couple thousand people in 2001.
Also 4K is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to defend Taiwan.
China is currently building some serious coastal barrier-breaching landing craft for very heavy, large vehicles like tanks. These wouldn't be built unless China intends to:
> Probably an unpopular opinion, but defending Taiwan was always a bluff. Americans aren’t going to die en masse over some random island in the pacific.
This is such a funny comment because it’s both right and oh so wrong.
Yes, the U.S. was likely never gonna send troops to fight in Taiwan (although it has sent troops to fight in Korea, so it’s not as much of a stretch as you claim).
But the bluff worked because the U.S.’s promises held value. To the point that the U.S. didn’t explicitly say they would defend Taiwan against China, but China was avoiding confrontation with Taiwan simply to prevent the U.S. from saying they would do that.
Of course, Donald Trump damaged that significantly in his first term and has torn that to shreds in his second term.
With Trump’s nakedly transparent and quod pro quo based foreign affairs, it’s hard to remember how much soft power value the U.S. had built up over decades where it could achieve what it wanted without even saying anything, which has basically been destroyed over about a decade.
Before Trump, Bush II burned the moral goodwill America had after WWII and the Cold War. After Iraq in particular the US can no longer claim to stand for the systems of international law it helped create.
Now Trump is burning alliances and soft power and threatening to burn the dollar.
It seems like imploding the postwar order and the US position therein is a right wing goal.
Taiwan is not some small random island in the Pacific. It is a country of 23 million people, one of the best-functioning democracies in the world, and the only Mandarin-speaking democracy. It would be a tragic loss for the world if it were swallowed by the PRC.
Is it important enough to start WWIII. That’s another question.
> Americans aren’t going to die en masse over some random island in the pacific
OP is saying that Taiwan is "some small random island" from the point of view of most Americans, its merits notwithstanding. And given everything the current Trump administration has done so far (which suggests that they view alliances, promises, and treaties in extremely transactional terms), it doesn't seem unfair or unreasonable to assume that they share this view too.
> Delete subsidy carrot, replace with tariff stick?
Tariffs are both subsidies and taxes at the same time; see "Tariffs Give U.S. Steelmakers a Green Light to Lift Prices":
> Executives from U.S. steel companies were enthusiastic backers of the 2018 tariffs and have urged Trump to deploy them again in his second term. They have called for the elimination of tariff exemptions and duty-free import quotas, saying those carve-outs allow unfairly low-price steel to enter the U.S. and undermine the steel market.
[…]
> Higher prices for imported steel are often followed by domestic suppliers raising their own prices, which then get passed through supply chains, manufacturing executives said. For consumers already reeling from rising retail prices and inflation, pricier steel and aluminum could further lift costs for durable goods like appliances and automobiles, as well as consumer products with aluminum packaging, such as canned beverages.
> “The issue with tariffs is everybody raises their prices, even the domestics,” said Ralph Hardt, owner of Belleville International, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of valves and components used in the energy and defense industries. Steel and aluminum are Belleville’s largest expenses.
So tariffs are taxes in the sense that consumers are paying higher prices. But they are subsidies in that domestic companies don't have as much pressure on prices and can get more money.
So if you want to help a particular industry might as well just go with subsidies directly instead of the taxation add-on as well.
Tariffs are massively simpler though and less prone to corruption. The latter is I think the reason we hear so much screeching about them.
Right now our industries are competing with slave labor and lax environmental controls. If we don’t want either of those things here, we can’t allow groups who do those things to sell into our market freely.
The idea that we tax our people and hand the money to our companies so they can compete with polluting slave labor is incredibly more complicated than just putting up barriers to entering our market. Not to mention the fact that the pollution in China et al affects us here also.
In my opinion we should just not trade with countries who don’t have labor and environmental standards at parity with ours. Tariffs are the next best thing.
Readit News
Repatriate and give them sme tax credit.
I don’t understand why they would care to move the money out of the countries where they earned that money and are likely to be expanding more than they are in the U.S. anyways.
> Earlier this year, he said: "Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan. Would we be so insane as to allow the world's key semiconductor company [to] fall untouched into the hands of an aggressive PRC? Taiwanese should realize that would be the least of their problems."
> Earlier this year, the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told the House Appropriations Committee that a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan and seizure of TSMC would be “absolutely devastating” for the United States.
> She said that “the United States buys 92 percent of its leading edge chips from TSMC in Taiwan,” meaning any disruption to that supply chain would have a significant impact on the US economy
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/trumps-undersecre...
Arizona fab has had top notch quality, out-pacing Taiwan's yields. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...
They're making 4nm chips too now, doing fine. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...
because if you look at Big Law, investment banking, or private equity, there are a lot of highly-educated Americans who are willing to work as hard as anyone on earth.
so it's got to be something about TSMC's recruiting pipeline, or perhaps what motivations the Americans who get educated for the skills they need have, rather than specifically American laziness.
>So likely no great loss for hem.
This I agree with. This whole tariff deal was supposed to encourage this exact behavior. Have more foreign companies setup on american soil so they can provide american jobs. So we arguably lose out a lot more on this action.
Dead Comment
The Chinese can't believe their good luck. No need for them to do anything -- just let the US self-destruct.
They don't. It was always a lie. The want to make their own lives great(er) at the expense of the rest of the human species.
Way too many people were somehow conned by an expert conman who had previously conned them. Short memories and wishful thinking is a dangerous combo.
Once the propagandist has convinced their target of the other's inherent malevolence, the target will no longer seek to understand the perspective of the dreaded other. Their every statement will be viewed with suspicion.
They only say they want to make their country great, the tricky devils!
Dead Comment
However, I'm old enough to recall when America was convinced by Rumsfeld et. al. to send US soldiers in harms way -- over 4000 of them died in Iraq -- for some obscenely lucrative oil contracts.
That qualifies as "die en masse", and it was over some really flimsy pretext, which was later proved to be completely false.
Also 4K is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to defend Taiwan.
a) Invade Taiwan in the next 1-2 years
b) Extort by threat of invasion
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-...
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/built...
Which will be pointless and fail, especially against a country like China.
This is such a funny comment because it’s both right and oh so wrong.
Yes, the U.S. was likely never gonna send troops to fight in Taiwan (although it has sent troops to fight in Korea, so it’s not as much of a stretch as you claim).
But the bluff worked because the U.S.’s promises held value. To the point that the U.S. didn’t explicitly say they would defend Taiwan against China, but China was avoiding confrontation with Taiwan simply to prevent the U.S. from saying they would do that.
Of course, Donald Trump damaged that significantly in his first term and has torn that to shreds in his second term.
With Trump’s nakedly transparent and quod pro quo based foreign affairs, it’s hard to remember how much soft power value the U.S. had built up over decades where it could achieve what it wanted without even saying anything, which has basically been destroyed over about a decade.
Now Trump is burning alliances and soft power and threatening to burn the dollar.
It seems like imploding the postwar order and the US position therein is a right wing goal.
Is it important enough to start WWIII. That’s another question.
OP is saying that Taiwan is "some small random island" from the point of view of most Americans, its merits notwithstanding. And given everything the current Trump administration has done so far (which suggests that they view alliances, promises, and treaties in extremely transactional terms), it doesn't seem unfair or unreasonable to assume that they share this view too.
Tariffs are both subsidies and taxes at the same time; see "Tariffs Give U.S. Steelmakers a Green Light to Lift Prices":
> Executives from U.S. steel companies were enthusiastic backers of the 2018 tariffs and have urged Trump to deploy them again in his second term. They have called for the elimination of tariff exemptions and duty-free import quotas, saying those carve-outs allow unfairly low-price steel to enter the U.S. and undermine the steel market.
[…]
> Higher prices for imported steel are often followed by domestic suppliers raising their own prices, which then get passed through supply chains, manufacturing executives said. For consumers already reeling from rising retail prices and inflation, pricier steel and aluminum could further lift costs for durable goods like appliances and automobiles, as well as consumer products with aluminum packaging, such as canned beverages.
> “The issue with tariffs is everybody raises their prices, even the domestics,” said Ralph Hardt, owner of Belleville International, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of valves and components used in the energy and defense industries. Steel and aluminum are Belleville’s largest expenses.
* http://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-ta...
So tariffs are taxes in the sense that consumers are paying higher prices. But they are subsidies in that domestic companies don't have as much pressure on prices and can get more money.
So if you want to help a particular industry might as well just go with subsidies directly instead of the taxation add-on as well.
Right now our industries are competing with slave labor and lax environmental controls. If we don’t want either of those things here, we can’t allow groups who do those things to sell into our market freely.
The idea that we tax our people and hand the money to our companies so they can compete with polluting slave labor is incredibly more complicated than just putting up barriers to entering our market. Not to mention the fact that the pollution in China et al affects us here also.
In my opinion we should just not trade with countries who don’t have labor and environmental standards at parity with ours. Tariffs are the next best thing.
Dead Comment