[nonethewiser]

> In the long term, it does. It's crazy to read a history of tariffs and conclude that raising tariffs on everyone, everthing and everywhere doesn't hurt you. But in the short term, that demand must be sated, and that disruption creates opportunities.

Actually its the opposite. In the long term it incentivizes manufacturing chips in the US. Domestic manufacturing has bipartisan support (see Biden's CHIPS bill) and obvious nation security implications. That's not to say tariffs are the right solution but the end goal is good and uncontroversial.

It creates economic chaos in the short term because the supply of domestic chips is relatively low and the cost of foreign chips will increase dramatically. This will normalize over time as domestic production ramps up.

[alec_irl]

How quickly do you think that manufacturers could set up American fab plants? Domestic chip production on the level of TSMC is several years out even if all available resources were directed toward it now.

[BeetleB]

You are aware that Intel has fabs, right?

They're not particularly behind TSMC. The issue is one of costs - TSMC is cheaper. If Trump hits them with tariffs, suddenly it's no longer cheaper than fabbing with Intel.

Whether Intel has the capacity is another story.

[talldayo]

Intel's fabs aren't competitive, period. They might compete when 18A gets taped out, but that's been in development hell for years now and is struggling to leave the sampling stage. TSMC has a track record of profitable EULV yields and can even charge competitors for fab access. I say that as an Intel apologist.

If Trump's goal is to make imported chips unprofitable, then he's going to push America backwards. Even Intel doesn't use Intel's fabs for high performance or high efficiency designs at this point.

[BeetleB]

> Intel's fabs aren't competitive, period.

If there's a 100% tariff on Taiwan made products, I assure you, Intel will be deemed competitive. Apple isn't going to double their BOM cost just to eke out another 10-20% in performance.

[talldayo]

Apple is one of the only companies in modern existence that could take a 2x hit to their SOC price and still turn an enormous profit on their hardware alone. There are non-Intel options Apple might consider like the TSMC Arizona plant, but Apple would only pick Intel as a fab partner over Tim Cook's dead body.

Don't forget that Apple's leadership is basically glued to Trump's hip for this administration. They'll be getting closer to the 25% rate for sure, and that's absolutely feasible with the margins Apple makes.

[BeetleB]

Even if Apple can weather the cost increase, most others cannot. Apple constitutes only 25% of TSMC's revenue.

[UncleOxidant]

> This will normalize over time as domestic production ramps up.

The problem is that it takes 5 years from the time ground is broken to the time an advanced fab is producing chips. In the meantime you decimate domestic industries that were dependent on these Taiwanese chips.