r/wallstreetbets • u/MikeMikeGaming AI bubble survivor • Jan 28 '25

News Trump To Tariff Chips Made In Taiwan, Targeting TSMC

https://au.pcmag.com/computers-electronics/109466/trump-to-tariff-chips-made-in-taiwan-targeting-tsmc

Why don't we kick Nvidia while it's down am I rite?

14.6k Upvotes

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2.2k

u/ihateeuge Jan 28 '25

Lol this is stupid. Companies are literally building the infrastructure here but it takes time. Tariffs are just going to make everything more expensive for consumers.

893

u/Yabutsk Jan 28 '25

He interferes with everything so that people need to bribe him to remove the tarrifs, restrictions or restore funding and credits. It's what happens when a middle-man runs the country.

374

u/h08817 Jan 28 '25

It's how Putin secured his position. Navalny discussed it in his documentary, used to be on YouTube but I can't find it right now. He wasn't a field agent in the KGB, he was the man who took bribes to make things happen, and that was how he gained influence.

226

u/Big-Compote-5483 Jan 28 '25

When the USSR collapsed he was responsible for handling what industries got sold off into the private sector and to whom. He used that position of power to eventually gain leverage over the Oligarchs/crime bosses, building up his influence in the background while Yeltsin drank himself to death, eventually handing things off to Putin.

Our prez is the US' Yeltsin; this country's Putin is one of the people trying to dismantle all institutions so they can be bought up by select oligarchs.

They have no problem tanking the markets so the public sector no longer functions. When that happens, those institutions will be sold off to the private sector. Wheela - we have russia 2.0

20

u/Dunkaroos4breakfast Jan 28 '25

Wheela

Is this how they say voila in Russian?

10

u/ItchyCosAids Jan 28 '25

But the USSR owned most of those industries (ya know, because communism) that were then sold off. The USA is an unapologetic capitalist, what industries does it have to sell off besides the postal system or libraries?

38

u/Big-Compote-5483 Jan 28 '25

A lot - transportation, water, electrical grid (looking at you Texas & Puerto Rico), etc., but there's plenty of privately run infrastructure that's going to fall flat and will need to be sold cheap once the grant money stops flowing. Whoever buys these institutions and infrastructure will become insanely rich(er).

16

u/Aurtach Jan 28 '25

Don't forget education. They have been blatantly defunding and milking money away from public schools to charter and private schools for years. Billions of dollars to be made by privatizing education

8

u/TurielD 🦍 Jan 28 '25

The USA is an unapologetic capitalist, what industries does it have to sell off besides the postal system or libraries?

Whichever industries the mango decides to take and hand over to his cronies for 'national security' concerns.

3

u/mercenaryarrogant Jan 28 '25

Maybe the old members of the Soviet communist state will eventually regret assisting fucking Nazi's getting elected in the U.S.

0

u/envythemaggots Jan 28 '25

Prepare for shock therapy the USA 🫡 It’s been a long time coming

-1

u/jorel43 Jan 28 '25

No that's not how Putin secured his position. You know not everything can be tied back to Putin or Russia. Trump and Putin are nothing alike, either now or in the past.

5

u/TheRC135 Jan 28 '25

"Middle man" is a nice way to say sleazy, corrupt old grifter.

3

u/VibeComplex Jan 28 '25

It’s national racketeering lol

2

u/StandardChemist6287 Jan 28 '25

It’s all by design. Everyone needs to watch this video https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?si=fQXzIY3uJlHAlXAH

2

u/barth_ Jan 28 '25

Yup, plus he isn't invested in chip companies. He wouldn't do this to casino chips 😁

2

u/MediumLanguageModel Jan 28 '25

Exactly! It's such a waste of oxygen for people to get all indignant about him threatening Greenland. No one needs to fall for that. He's positioning Denmark on the defense for negotiations on military installations and mining.

Before any Trumpers think I'm defending him, remember 1) that he's only doing this to leverage support from the most corrupt oligarchs in the country and 2) he's not smart enough to come up with these ideas himself; he's just a big enough scumbag to follow through on it to the extent his boosters are willing to make him feel like the special prince his parents never did.

1

u/Devlnchat Jan 28 '25

Just like how he effectively banned tik tok and then unbanned it and forced Tik tok to write a big message saying "thank you daddy T. from saving us!".

1

u/MtnMaiden Jan 28 '25

I bet he's got a shit ton of stocks.

You can't sue the President for insider trading :p

1

u/DropmDead Jan 28 '25

Apt. Apt analysis, Yabutsk.

587

u/tacoito Jan 28 '25

It’s what plants crave.

83

u/badjokes Jan 28 '25

electrolytes

41

u/Cruezin Jan 28 '25

Don't worry scrote. Lots of tards live kick-ass lives.

26

u/Emigs1027 Jan 28 '25

My ex-wife was tarded, pretty sure she’s a pilot now

3

u/TimedogGAF Jan 28 '25

Should I pour Brawndo on my TSMC-made CPU to make it grow?

1

u/badjokes Jan 28 '25

I'm not positive, i won my cabinet appointment in a sweepstakes a few days ago.

2

u/1SqkyKutsu Jan 28 '25

Idiocracy is happening 500 years too soon.....

1

u/throw-away3105 Jan 28 '25

Tariffs on electrolytes.

1

u/Heliosvector Jan 28 '25

More electrolyte than your body has room for

31

u/wellowurld Jan 28 '25

Damn oranges

2

u/SpeedyTheBug Jan 28 '25

Brawndo calls it is

184

u/PugMaster_ENL Jan 28 '25

TMSC is already building a plant in Arizona. I believe this is the result of the CHIPS act that Biden signed.

102

u/leesionn Jan 28 '25

Aren’t tsmc also keeping the generations of chips they manufacture in their non Taiwan fabs a generation behind to make sure there’s some incentive their Taiwan facilities are protected? Thought I read that somewhere or I’m just regarded

49

u/corydoras_supreme Jan 28 '25

Yes. Taiwan built up their lead in this field for this exact reason. They're not going to just give it away. The American foundries were a compromise.

92

u/WUMW Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25

dons tilfoil hat

China unveiled DeepSea and its lower-gen chip usage to reduce the value of Taiwan’s cutting-edge chip-making facilities and make defending it a lower priority of the US

17

u/thebarnhouse Jan 28 '25

That's not even crazy.

6

u/mines_over_yours Jan 28 '25

I was looking fo the "actual play" by China, this sounds plausible.

12

u/KTenshi2 Jan 28 '25

I reached the same conclusion. It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

3

u/Krungoid Jan 28 '25

Reduce the value of Taiwan as a US aligned state through their manufacturing capacity and investment into lithography. Increase the cost of a potential military intervention through their naval capacity and eventually re-unify politically.

2

u/22Arkantos Jan 28 '25

of the US

of Trump.

The people in the US capable of actual strategic thinking know that abandoning Taiwan is a completely idiotic suggestion.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '25

[deleted]

4

u/Clown_Penis-Dot-Fart Jan 28 '25

It was my 11th thought

1

u/2CommaNoob Jan 28 '25

That's some 5D chess they are playing....

1

u/jblade Jan 28 '25

https://www.threads.net/@yannlecun/post/DFVXCiMuHWL

I think the craziness today was a bit disproportional. I am curious if DeepSeek will share how much having all these users on their model actually costs vs the costs of training it

20

u/wolfansbrother Jan 28 '25

once its complete(~2030) the $65 billion facility should produce 20% of TSMCs total output.

5

u/sephirothFFVII Jan 28 '25

Eh - more like they're spending billions of dollars on making plants where they've already ironed out all the process kinks.

It could be for your reason but it seems like they'd want to minimize risk while spending billions

4

u/LensCapPhotographer Jan 28 '25

Of course. This is normal. Why on earth would you give some other country your cutting edge tech. It's protected by law.

1

u/AcidicVaginaLeakage Jan 28 '25

It's also not financially viable to have your top of the line chips made in all your factories. A state of the art fab costs more money than any of us could wrap our heads around.

Like, Intel is planning on investing 28 BILLION in ohio alone. Likely investing 100 billion in all their fabs over the next 5 years... Seriously these places are absolutely massive and a single machine can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

1

u/element515 Jan 28 '25

It’s not even on purpose. Building a cutting edge factory also requires the support staff and everything else. They spent years building all that up in Taiwan. You can’t just plop a factory down and expect the support to instantly arrive. It’s why it was so important to get the funding to start building these factories now so in 5-10 years maybe we can have similar capabilities

1

u/tinyLEDs Jan 28 '25

This spells it all out, with pictures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh4QGey2zTk

1

u/InternalShadow Jan 28 '25

No not on purpose. Their new plant is behind schedule some because it takes longer to go from design to build in the US than in Taiwan, due to permitting and inspection requirements. They will be behind, but not intentionally behind. The TSMC ceo talked about it in the last call

7

u/Quick1711 Jan 28 '25

Biden signed

Hit the nail on the head

3

u/Allydarvel Jan 28 '25

That's it. His mission is to undo everything the Democrats have done as punishment for beating him last election. TSMC made biden look good, now Trump wants them punished

12

u/Even_Towel8943 Jan 28 '25

The Phoenix facility is producing chips already with higher yield than anticipated.

1

u/subaru5555rallymax Jan 28 '25

The Phoenix facility is producing chips already with higher yield than anticipated.

4%, but they’re not producing with latest process, which is three years away still.

1

u/Even_Towel8943 Jan 28 '25

It’s true that there are multiple facilities in several phases but what’s up and running is outperforming expectations. When it’s fully completed it will be the global state of the art.

1

u/subaru5555rallymax Jan 28 '25

When it’s fully completed it will be the global state of the art.

In about a decade.

1

u/Even_Towel8943 Jan 28 '25

Much sooner actually

1

u/subaru5555rallymax Jan 28 '25

Much sooner actually

Not really, actually. ~2030 for limited 2nm production, which is beginning this year in Taiwan.

1

u/Even_Towel8943 Jan 28 '25

Yes which is 5 years from now. Much sooner than 10, as I said.

1

u/subaru5555rallymax Jan 28 '25 edited Jan 28 '25

Yes which is 5 years from now. Much sooner than 10, as I said.

Yes, they’ll be behind state-of-the-art in five years.

1

u/Throwaway-tan Jan 28 '25

It doesn't matter, they are producing 4nm chips which are still in high demand and will remain in high demand for some time.

3

u/DonaldMaralago Jan 28 '25

So tariffs on Arizona?

2

u/1eave-me-a1one Jan 28 '25

Economic cleansing?

1

u/dud3sweet777 Jan 28 '25

And they said it will cost them 2x to produce in the US and take way longer compared to Taiwan because of all the regulations and permits here

1

u/LensCapPhotographer Jan 28 '25

I heard they stumbled on some issues.

1

u/jaylanky7 Jan 28 '25

There was also a huge plant being being in my home state of Georgia that was being built with that money

1

u/gaggzi Jan 28 '25

He doesn’t want them to build a plant in Arizona. He wants them to run ALL their plants in the US.

1

u/eldenpotato Jan 28 '25

He mentions that. He hates it bc it’s giving money to companies when they’ve already got money, or something? I dunno, he doesn’t make much sense

1

u/Throwaway-tan Jan 28 '25

Not building, already built and they are expanding it.

1

u/Impressive-Medium-77 Jan 28 '25

Do you have any idea of how much of Total percentage that factory will produce? And when it will be finished?

-13

u/ihateeuge Jan 28 '25

Yes. It took 4 years for them to get it going

11

u/coppercrackers Jan 28 '25

Yeah why don’t you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make a cutting edge chip fab that is market competitive? Clearly it’s quick and easy when you set your mind to it. Clearly the wealthiest institution in human history couldn’t get it done any faster than you can

32

u/guydud3bro Jan 28 '25

Nah tariffs will make things happen faster, according to regard logic.

114

u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Jan 28 '25

Tariffs are just going to make everything more expensive for consumers.

Which makes his billionaire friends lots of money.

66

u/GerryManDarling Jan 28 '25

And once it's there, it will stuck there. Even if we pick a Democrat president next time, he/she still can't fix it. Negotiating away the tariff will take much more time than slapping it on.

105

u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Jan 28 '25

Last time America had a tariff war, we got Hoovervilles and the Great Depression. People think it was the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression. Lol.

2

u/Dr_Schmoctor Jan 28 '25

The stock market crash was the trigger though (1929), the tariffs came later (1930). The overall cause is more like a combination of 4 main factors: stock market crash, unemployment, fragile post World War I global economy, and yes, the trade war.

The initial trigger of the Great Depression was the stock market crash in October 1929. This created a loss of confidence in the economy and led to bank failures due to bad loans and the loss of depositors' money.

During the 1920s, there was overproduction in agriculture and manufacturing. The demand for goods could not keep up, leading to widespread job losses.

The global economy was already fragile due to the aftermath of WWI and the reparations imposed on Germany. Many countries were struggling with their debts and economic instability.

A major event in 1930 was the passing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in the US. This tariff raised duties on thousands of imported goods, aiming to protect American industries. In response, many countries imposed retaliatory tariffs, leading to a sharp decline in global trade and further depressed the economy.

2

u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Jan 28 '25

Harding started the tariff war, 1922, I think. It led to lots of problems through the roaring 20s, then Hoover did another tariff act that was the nail in the coffin.

37

u/DonaldMaralago Jan 28 '25

Have you had a covefe with an average trump supporter? They don’t understand how tariffs work and half of them are even dumber than that… I roast and sell coffee (micro amounts) but shits going to get expensive… just had an order for green beans get screwed up and I suspect they want to push me into something more expensive.

4

u/shane1281 Jan 28 '25

Your coffee $8 a cup too…?

29

u/Thats_All_I_Need Jan 28 '25

Yup and then when the factories go online here you think prices will lower? Nah. It’s all by design.

17

u/ihateeuge Jan 28 '25

Well of course not. They need to recoup the investment on building a $50B facility

1

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '25 edited Feb 11 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Thats_All_I_Need Jan 28 '25

Haha get out of your bubble.

13

u/0x4BID Jan 28 '25

Yeah, but they haven't lined Trump or his family's pockets yet. They must pay the Trump tax first before they can continue doing business with us. They may need to make a "donation" to TRUMP coin/

7

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '25

Isn't he canceling the CHIPS act? The thing "do nothing" BIDEN PASSED to bring manufacturing back to US soil? How's this going to help? Lol

1

u/Imperce110 Jan 28 '25

He gonna cancel it then bring it back under a different name, like he did with NAFTA and USMCA

13

u/zeromussc Jan 28 '25

Also, tariffs on everyone will make the stuff you need to build the infrastructure more expensive too.

Y'all are really gonna choke off supply chains before building your own. And choking the supply chains needed to even just buy your own infra... So dumb.

Very stable genius in charge.

5

u/Ndongle Jan 28 '25

Literally, tsmc has already been building a plant in Arizona, just waiting on it to be finished in a year or two so that he can take credit.

1

u/brigadierfrog Jan 28 '25

Run entirely by immigrants

2

u/Muggle_Killer Jan 28 '25

Its not stupid because the real goal of tariffs is just to increase taxes on the poors so the wealthy can get another tax cut.

1

u/MrSnarf26 Jan 28 '25

Hold on what does Vince McMahon think

1

u/crailface Jan 28 '25

Ask Linda ,she is nearby . I think she teaches mangos

1

u/dogoodsilence1 Jan 28 '25

That is if the consumer pays

1

u/Howboutit85 Jan 28 '25

We tried to say that

1

u/YamahaFourFifty Jan 28 '25

I don’t get how he, or anyone in his realm don’t understand or heard of this? It’s economics 101

1

u/Cherocai Jan 28 '25

yes but what about egg prices! /s

1

u/Jeffery95 Jan 28 '25

Not only does it take time. Its also incredibly hard to do even with unlimited resources. Top end chip fabs are borderline magic at this point

1

u/WalkonWalrus Jan 28 '25

"what's a tariff"

1

u/IWasNOTBannedYet Jan 28 '25

Wouldn't the US gov't be the biggest consumer? Can the US pay the tariffs imposed by the US?

1

u/ShadowRiku667 Jan 28 '25

A way to increase demand for when those factories open. Then if they control their output they can hit the price mark they want

1

u/StandardizedGenie Jan 28 '25

Yeah, and he wants to get rid of any funding from the government for that infrastructure by getting rid of the CHIPS Act. Nothing he does makes any sense.

1

u/hikeit233 Jan 28 '25

He’s also trying to end the Chips act funding for building fabs here.

1

u/Zaku_pilot_292 Jan 28 '25

No no, the taiwanese will pay it, you'll see

1

u/PipsqueakPilot Jan 28 '25

They’re using the tariffs to make up the income lost on the tax cuts for oligarchs 

1

u/Bagellllllleetr Jan 28 '25

Congratulations! You figured it out! These people are idiots! Useful idiots! For the Tech Oligarchs!

1

u/futurevybyz Jan 28 '25

Tsm is supposed to have a plant in AZ operational this year.

1

u/Photodan24 Jan 28 '25

This is why I bought my new Apple laptop last weekend. I knew that turd would do something stupid like this.

1

u/fumo7887 Jan 29 '25

Logic has no place in this administration.

0

u/DistributionOnly8115 Jan 28 '25

maybe more infrastructure would be good? another tsm plant? really he should use the tariff to fund another chips act

not sure how the geopolitics plays out but i wouldn’t be too surprised if theres a 10-15% chance china invades taiwan within 5 years. that will directly affect nvdias bottom line- and usa with the economy becoming increasingly ai dependent. 

1

u/VisualMod GPT-REEEE Jan 28 '25

TSM's drop today isn't just about tariffs, it's also about their Q2 earnings guidance. Meanwhile, NVDA's tanking because AI hype is cooling off. Poor retail investors always late to the party.

1

u/DistributionOnly8115 Jan 28 '25

ah, i see. i was more thinking that tariffs now will distribute risk across time

-2

u/Miserable_Advisor_91 Jan 28 '25

You sound woke /s