To be America's enemy is dangerous; to be its friend, fatal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 158 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I would absolutely not trust us to provide any protection, even IF they fold to the demand. The smart play here is to call the bluff. Because it is a bluff.

  • source
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] [S] 54 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I feel bad for Taiwanese politicians. They can't afford to provoke a major tantrum from Trump. They still need to purchase American arms, even if the US can't be counted on to help in an invasion. Some performative flattery and groveling might be in order. If it was me, I'd swallow my pride and cite the impossibility of moving entire chip production chains instead.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago*

    Likely they'll just quote numbers of moving facilities to the U.S. for server production, which will be a restatement of numbers that were already given in past years that Trump can claim are from him. There are facilities that were built in Tennessee/Kentucky/Alabama that I know of for companies like Quanta who make the AI server racks for Meta, Google, and such. So they are already up and running and will show numbers that will show possibly hundreds of millions a day in sales. (Each new server rack is around 2-4 million, and that's just one line I know of)

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Taiwan doesn't need to buy any US arms. The US needs a taiwan that asks for help if China invades so they can intervene and not lose access to the chips. An armed Taiwan benefits the US in that case.

    If Taiwan moves chip production to anywhere but Taiwan the US will defend that location instead

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I don't know. That may be why all the generals were recalled. Someone smarter negotiating Taiwan.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Huh? Given who’s running the show these days? Not likely.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments