ChinaTalk: Chips: Liberated? Trump’s Semis Tariff Gambit
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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Bill Reinsch of CSIS and the Trade Guys podcast with Jay Goldberg of Digits and Dollars and the Circuit podcast join to dicuss Trump's tariff impact on semis on another CSIS-ChinaTalk Chip Chat!
Bill lays out the four clashing instincts driving policy in MAGA 2.0: revenge for decades of perceived slights, a bargaining bluff to coerce concessions, a fast‑cash revenue grab, and a fantasy of instant on‑shore fab construction.
Jay walks through the on‑the‑ground fallout: chip designers worrying about losing China sales, GPU‑specific duties warping supply chains, and a loophole that lets boards assembled in Mexico skate by.
We explore how blanket tariffs could accelerate China’s ascent in analog and trailing‑edge chips, undermine Biden‑era “ally‑first” export‑control diplomacy, and leave Commerce’s BIS badly under‑resourced to enforce the rules.
We also get into whether allies will sign up for Washington’s crusade after being slapped themselves, and whether Nvidia, Intel, and Tesla are “too important to punish.”
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