Donald Trump’s siege on Huawei began exactly three years ago, with a first veto on US carrier affairs with the Chinese company – and with the arrest in Canada, on US orders, of director and daughter Meng Wanzhou. of the founder.
But the action with the biggest global impact took place on May 15, 2020, when Trump vetoed the company’s use of any technology with American participation. It was then that it all started, in the chronology of the Financial Nikkei, of one of the countries most affected by the measure, Japan, and which published a series of reports:
“The chip crisis is a consequence of the decision taken in May to prevent companies around the world from using machines and software developed in the United States to design or produce chips for Huawei.”
In this second quarter of 2020, the company overtook Apple and Samsung, using chips with American technology, and became the world’s largest smartphone maker.
Pursued, he did his shopping before the doors closed. Stock clearance from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest manufacturer.
“Huawei’s acquisition spree has resulted in severe shortages,” Nikkei says (pictured above). Not just for what you bought, but to encourage your competition, including Chinese Xiaomi, to do the same.
In September, Trump extended the veto of American technology to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), the largest chipmaker in China.
“The US actions against Huawei and SMIC have caused a concentration of world production in Taiwan,” Nikkei concludes. The island has come under pressure from governments and businesses in Japan, Germany and the United States itself, “but things haven’t gotten much better.”
On the contrary, from the start of the Joe Biden government, the largest automakers, now also dependent on chips, mainly Japanese, German and American, began shutting down factories and laying off workers for lack of supply. This is what GM has also done in Brazil.
And Biden has widened Trump’s bet. A national security commission headed by former Google chairman Eric Schmidt released a report proposing to restrict China’s freedom to purchase hardware to produce chips. And that the United States should seek to return to production at home, so as not to depend on an island that can be occupied by China at any time.
Hence the “chip summit” called by Biden this week, with GM, Google, Korean Samsung and Taiwanese TSMC, to propose “the return of chipmaking in the United States”, promising 50 billion dollars in ‘public investments.
?
In the meantime, this Friday (16), in the calls of the South China Morning Post and the financier Caixin: “China becomes the biggest buyer of equipment to produce chips”, according to 2020 data published by the American association of the sector, SEMI.
He left Taiwan and “is aggressively investing in new factories as part of a long-term goal of reducing its reliance on American-made technology.”
Also this week, Peter Wennink, chairman of Dutch ASML, TSMC’s biggest competitor in high-tech chips, told an online event that the export controls imposed by Trump and now Biden would not only succeed in contain China’s technological progress, but would harm the United States and Europe as well.
“It will cost non-Chinese economies a lot of jobs and income,” he said.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this column? The subscriber can release five free accesses from any link per day. Just click on the blue F below.