Taiwan pressured to move 50% of chip production to US or lose protection (opens in new tab)

I feel that it would be moronic for them to move any. What incentive does USA have to protect them otherwise?

They just need to say “American not smart enough” lol

>>if it wants ensured protection against a threatened Chinese invasion

If the promised 'ensured protection' of Taiwan was worth anything then why is the security of the United States dependent upon 50% of chip production being moved out of Taiwan?

Sounds more likely Taiwan's 'ensured protection' will only last as long as 90% of chip production remains in Taiwan.

Reminds me of Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances from the 90s, where they gave up their nukes for assurances of protection…

Has the US government has gotten more trustworthy in the last 3 decades?

It’s very literally the only thing providing them protection in the first place. They have something the US can not lose and can not replace.

What on earth do you think is going to happen when you suddenly help them not rely on your infrastructure anymore.

There is no way in hell you could ever trust Trump to pick up the phone if you needed help. This is blackmail from a position of weakness from the US here.

They would be well advised to take this deal... in exchange for NATO membership and recognition.

The only just move is for the US and European countries to recognize Taiwan and add them to NATO - or invite them to be a US state.

I feel this WSJ exclusive properly contextualizes the US commerce secretary's threat to abandon an ally:

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/trump-xi-talks-china-taiwan-... ("Xi Is Chasing Huge Concession From Trump: Opposing Taiwan Independence" (2 days ago))

In the 20th century, opposition to totalitarianism in the West was idealistic; in the US it's now transactional. US leadership is signalling Chinese annexation of Taiwan is no longer a red line; it's something to be negotiated—something that Taiwan is expected to negotiate with the US (and perhaps Xi is also invited to negotiate?)

It's ridiculous to have to put up with this childish nonsense. This would take a decade, if both countries were pouring money and effort into the project. There's no incentives (other than the perceived existential one, where-in the US also loses all access) and the economics don't work. But we are subject constantly to the barrage of fantasy being put on by the nowadays US Government.

This feels only slightly more probable than Trump getting the EU to tariff China at our level (https://www.axios.com/2025/09/13/trump-sanctions-russia-nato...), join the US in economic suicide (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/business/trump-tariffs-sm...).

The commitment to not doing the right-thing unless you can coopt other people into doing incredibly harmful to themselves things feels like it's giving enormous quarter to the enemy, to the authoritarians of the world. Having an excuse for not doing the right thing, for cry-bullying your way through your inaction, is such a Demon-Haunting move. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45404373