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Comment by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 | Hacker News Reader

At least one component of the "America First" strategy I can fully get behind is bringing manufacturing back to the US mainline. If anything that last few months has taught us, it's that we must not lose our ability to produce quality, vital products. Semiconductors definitely falls into that category.

I don't care how it's accomplished, either carrots (tax incentives) or sticks (tariffs). Do what's necessary to bring the production of these vital components here.

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Consider for a moment that less reliance upon foreign supply chains makes {trade, cold, shooting} war more viable.

Right now the world is peaceful and I stand in North America with an iPhone 11 Pro in my pocket and an advanced Nvidia GPU in my workstation. I’m not sure I see a problem with that state of affairs.

Reducing interdependence reduces the downside to stupid, selfish nationalistic moves. I don’t want that at all.

More foreign dependence makes you more vulnerable in a war, and definitely doesn't prevent war. It makes you an easier target.

Also what you see as peaceful, others see as a stalemate unfortunately. Hopefully it lasts.

The whole point is that right now China does not depend on us as much as we depend on them for manufacturing. We need to correct the balance, or at least expanding manufacturing in neutral or allied countries.

If a war breaks out now, they are in a better position regarding manufactured goods. Rare earth metals too.

In this scenario, if your adversary produced or had control over your entire military supply chain, do you think that would give them less leverage or more leverage? Would it make them less hostile, or more hostile? Leverage is everything, in trade, war, and peace.

Did you see that someone was ready to manufacture n95 masks for the us government but they declined? That type of short sitedness is hard to fix.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.nonpareilonline.com/news/spe...

Taxpayer-funded state-directed economic activity?

The problem is, what do you do when the other guy is doing that? It's basically an antitrust violation with a foreign state playing the role of the trust. They can subsidize their industry to sell below cost until yours goes out of business and then have a monopoly. China has been doing this for decades.

Not responding is a competitive disadvantage, so it has to be either subsidies or tariffs and sanctions.

Unlike bank bailouts, we'll have a semiconductor fab, supply chain and jobs to show for it. Put the reserve currency to good use while it's still a reserve currency.

Boosting US domestic manufacturing will help ensure the USD remains the reserve currency.

There's zero threat currently to that status and only China is capable of even plausibly posing a challenge in the next ~30 years. The Euro, Yen and Bitcoin pose no realistic challenge to USD dominance. It leaves only the Yuan, which still has no global position at all and isn't regarded as a currency you can trust. China will obviously do anything they can to alter that equation.

We're going into, at a minimum, a cold war with China that will last decades. There is no scenario where that is avoided. The US should become wildly aggressive about bringing manufacturing back, or otherwise pushing it out of China (including convincing allies to do the same), pulling every lever necessary.

Yes.

"America First" isn't a strategy, it's a slogan.

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