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"Arthur T Knackerbracket" writes:

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https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/policy/trump-administration-weighs-expanding-chip-tariffs-to-laptops-consoles-and-servers [tomshardware.com]

Taiwan's January trade agreement applies zero tariffs on Taiwanese chips [tomshardware.com] within 2.5 times a company's current U.S. manufacturing capacity while new plants are under construction, tightening to 1.5 times once they're built. TSMC has committed $265 billion to its Arizona site, the largest foreign direct investment in U.S. history, yet projects only around 30% of its most advanced capacity there at full build-out, according to POLITICO. Taiwan produces more than 90% of the world's leading-edge chips, and industry representatives argued in the talks that a quota keyed to current domestic capacity can't cover the volumes hyperscalers are buying during a record AI spending run.

Jonathan McHale, digital policy chief at the Computer and Communications Industry Association, whose members include Amazon [tomshardware.com], Google [tomshardware.com], and Meta, compared the data center buildout to "building the transcontinental railroad" and said added cost and unpredictability put that investment at risk.

Tech lobbyists have met with Lutnick and Bureau of Industry and Security [tomshardware.com] undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler with growing frequency since the start of summer, per the report, but three of the sources said recent talks moved against the industry. One person involved put the domestic manufacturing build-out at more than five years, longer than any phase-in the administration has allowed on previous tariff rounds [tomshardware.com].

White House spokesperson Kush Desai defended the approach, saying reshoring chip manufacturing is a top priority for the president; the Commerce Department didn't respond to POLITICO's requests for comment.

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