Dutch firms eye chips making in Vietnam amid China tensions

Reuters/Yahoo ^ | Thu, November 2, 2023 at 5:46 PM GMT+7 | Francesco Guarascio

[dfwgator]

My guess is there is an opposite opinion about China and Russia.

"I'd rather smell French s___ for 5 years, than Chinese s___ for a thousand." - Ho Chi Minh

[central_va]

Tariffs do a lot of good things:

1. They raise revenue through a consumption based voluntary tax.
2. They prevent domestic manufacturing from offshoring critical industries. The government role is to think strategically and not quarterly.
3. Raise the standard of living of lower middle income households.
4. Removes families from needing govt assistance.
5. Can be raised/lowered like knob when trade deficits fluctuate.

Down side to tariffs

1. Cause inflation usually a one time bump equal to the tariff. Increase tariff 1%, prices go up 1%. Very predicitibe very managable.
2. Cuts into corporate profits.
3. Cuts into grift, kick backs and "knowledge" transfer.

[RightOnTheBorder]

Chip making involves a lot of nasty chemicals. The safety and environmental requirements in free-ish societies are expensive. It is much cheaper to operate in communist countries where the environment and human life don’t matter if the rulers get more money and power. Only reason things are still made in 1st world countries is these serf nations don’t have the population of technical experts to achieve necessary quality.