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The United States has “abandoned the ball” on the manufacture of fleas over the years, allowing China and other Asian centers to steam. That said Gina Raimondo, who at the time was the American secretary to trade, in an interview with me in 2021.
Four years later, fleas remain a battlefield in the race in the United States-China for technological supremacy, and American president Donald Trump now wants Turbocharger a very complex and delicate manufacturing process that has taken other decades to improve.
He says that his pricing policy will release the American economy and bring jobs home, but it is also true that some of the largest companies have long fought with a lack of skilled workers and poor quality products in their American factories.
So what will Trump do differently? And, since Taiwan and other parts of Asia have secret sauce on the creation of high precision fleas, is it even possible for the United States to produce them too, and on a large scale?
Make Micropuces: Secret Sauce
Semiconductors are at the heart of feeding everything, from washing machines to iphones and military jets to electric vehicles. These tiny silicon slices, called chips, were invented in the United States, but today, it is in Asia that the most advanced fleas are produced on a phenomenal scale.
Doing them is expensive and technologically complex. An iPhone, for example, can contain chips designed in the United States, manufactured in Taiwan, Japan or South Korea, using raw materials like rare earths that are mainly extracted in China. Then they could be sent to Vietnam for packaging, then to China to assemble and test, before being shipped to the United States.
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Micropules have been invented in the United States, but Asian countries now dominate production
It is a deeply integrated ecosystem, which has evolved over the decades.
Trump praised the flea industry but also threatened it with prices. He told the industry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), he should pay a 100% tax if he did not build factories in the United States.
With such a complex ecosystem and fierce competition, they must be able to plan higher costs and long-term investment calls, far beyond Trump’s administration. The constant changes in policies do not help. So far, some have shown a desire to invest in the United States.
The important subsidies that China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea have given to private companies in development of fleas are a great reason for their success.
It was largely the reflection behind the American law on fleas and sciences, which became the law in 2022 to President Joe Biden – an effort to redo the manufacture of fleas and diversify the supply chains – by allocating subsidies, tax credits and subsidies to encourage national manufacturing.
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Donald Trump threatened TSMC with a 100% tax if it does not build factories in the United States
Certain companies such as the largest TSMC flea manufacturer in the world and the largest smartphones manufacturer in the world Samsung have become the main beneficiaries of legislation, the TSMC receiving $ 6.6 billion in grants and loans for plants in Arizona, and Samsung receiving around $ 6 billion for an installation in Taylor, Texas.
TSMC announced an additional $ 100 billion in the United States with Trump, in addition to 65 billion dollars promised for three factories. The diversification of flea production also works for TSMC, China threatening several times to take control of the island.
But TSMC and Samsung faced challenges with their investments, including the costs of the rise in power, the difficulties in recruiting skilled labor work, construction delays and the resistance of local unions.
“It’s not just a factory where you create boxes,” said Marc Einstein, research director of the Market Counterpoint intelligence company. “The factories that make chips are high -tech sterile environments, they take years and years to build.”
And despite the American investment, TSMC said that most of its manufacture will remain in Taiwan, in particular its most advanced computer chips.
Has China tried to steal the prowess of Taiwan?
Today, TSMC plants in Arizona produce high quality fleas. But Chris Miller, author of Chip War: The Fight for the World for the world in the world, argues that “they are a generation behind the tip of Taiwan”.
“The question of the scale depends on the amount of investment made in the United States against Taiwan,” he said. “Today, Taiwan has much more capacity.”
The reality is that it took decades in Taiwan to strengthen this capacity, and despite the threat of China which spends billions to steal the prowess of Taiwan in the industry, it continues to prosper.
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TSMC has invested in the manufacture of fleas in America
TSMC was the pioneer of the “foundry model” where flea manufacturers took us conceptions and chips manufactured for other companies.
On the conduct of a wave of Silicon Valley start-ups like Apple, Qualcomm and Intel, TSMC was able to compete with us and the Japanese giants with the best engineers, the work of labor and highly qualified knowledge.
“Could the United States make fleas and create jobs?” asks Mr. Einstein. “Of course, but will they cut down tokens to a nanometer? Probably not.”
One of the reasons is Trump’s immigration policy, which can potentially limit the arrival of skilled talents from China and India.
“Even Elon Musk had an immigration problem with Tesla engineers,” said Einstein, referring to Musk’s support for the United States Visa H-1B program that brings skilled workers to the United States.
“It is a neck of strangulation and there is nothing that they can do, unless they completely change their position on immigration. You cannot simply magic doctoral students from nowhere.”
The global training effect
Despite this, Trump doubled on the prices, ordering a survey on the national security trade in the semiconductor sector.
“It’s a key in the machine – a large key,” explains Mr. Einstein. “Japan, for example, died of economic revitalization on semiconductors and prices were not in the business plan.”
The longer-term impact on industry, according to Mr. Miller, is probably a renewed accent on national manufacturing in many global key economies: China, Europe, United States.
Some companies could seek new markets. The Chinese giant of Huawei technology, for example, has extended to Europe and emerging markets, notably Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and many African countries in the face of export controls and prices, although the margins of developing countries are low.
“China will finally want to win – it must innovate and invest in R&D. Look at what it has done with Deepseek,” explains Mr. Einstein, referring to the IA chatbot built by China.
“If they build better chips, everyone is going to go to them. Profitability is something they can do now, and impatiently waiting, it is ultra-high technology manufacturing.”
Trump says his pricing policy will release the American economy and bring jobs home
In the meantime, new manufacturing centers can emerge. India has a lot of promises, according to experts who say that it is more likely to integrate into the flea supply chain than the United States-it is geographically closer, the workforce is inexpensive and education is good.
India has reported a desire that it was open to the manufacture of fleas, but it faces a certain number of challenges, including the acquisition of land for factories, and the production of chips needs the highest quality and many.
Negotiation chips
Flea companies are not completely at the mercy of the prices. Pure dependence and demand for fleas of large American companies like Microsoft, Apple and Cisco could exert pressure on Trump to reverse the samples from the flea sector.
Some initiates believe that intense lobbying by Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has obtained exemptions for smartphone, laptop and electronic, and Trump rates, and Trump would have raised a lag ban that Nvidia can sell in China following lobbying.
Questioned specifically on Apple products on Monday in the Oval office, Trump said: “I am a very flexible person”, adding that “there may be things to come, I speak to Tim Cook, I helped Tim Cook recently.”
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The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, wanted Trump to raise a ban on flea sales in China
Mr. Einstein thinks that everything comes down to Trump who finally tries to conclude an agreement – he and his administration know that they cannot simply build a larger building with regard to fleas.
“I think what the Trump administration is trying to do is what he did with the owner of Tiktok bytedance. He says that I will no longer let you operate in the United States unless you give Oracle or another American company,” said Einstein.
“I think they are trying to fandangle something similar here – TSMC is going anywhere, let’s force them to make an agreement with Intel and take a slice of pie.”
But the plan of the semiconductor ecosystem in Asia has a precious lesson: no country can exploit a flea industry in its own right, and if you want to make advanced semiconductors, efficiently and on a large scale-it will take time.
Trump tries to create a flea industry thanks to protectionism and isolation, when what allowed the flea industry to emerge throughout Asia is the opposite: collaboration in a globalized economy.
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