There’s no cynicism about it (not that cynicism would be intrinsically something bad, but that’s another discussion), but that’s the thing, the Government saying and actually checking that X sum is spent by a certain company on objective Y doesn’t make any sense, because once the X sum of money enters the company’s coffers its “substance” changes, it isn’t “X” anymore, it is “drowned” in the anonymity of said company’s available (or achievable) funds (funding). Again, I have no doubts that the Government will actually check that the money marked as “Z”, money which had been given to said company, is actually spent on objective Y, but it’s all illusory, because that money has stopped “being” Z once it entered the company’s accounts.

To put it another way, it’s similar to the futility of those well-meaning people who give some homeless person $5 on the express condition that they spend those $5 on food, not on alcohol or drugs. Which said homeless person is all too happy to do, he/she will gladly spend those gifted $5 on food, which leaves the other hipotethical $5 which he/she had in their pocket all available for buying drugs or alcohol, money which otherwise would have been spent probably half and half (2.50 on food, 2.50 on drugs).

At least in the counter-example I gave the result of largesse is a homeless person better fed, which is good (and also more intoxicated, which is not so good), but in this example with Intel you have taxpayers filling the pockets of one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

> we don’t even have the capability to fabricate at the most advanced nodes.

I'm not sure that's entirely true. If we define "most advanced nodes" as 5nm-class fabrication, certainly Intel is doing that well now, just not in volume production. Intel 4 based Meteor Lake powered on and runs Windows as of earlier this year.

No capability to build and not ready for volume manufacturing aren't really the same class of problem.

I think the USA is just as capable of writing fat checks to ASML as Taiwan is.

The government and people of Taiwan understand that TSMC is a major reason mainland China hasn't bulldozed their tiny island yet. It's their ace in the hole. They have a monopoly on arguably the most important technology in the world right now, and the US and EU will protect them as long as they hold that monopoly. There's no way they'd actually physically offshore that golden goose. It's a brilliant move by Taiwan, and I highly doubt they'd voluntarily give it up.

"US Government is also got TSMC (Taiwan's semiconductor fabs) to build an Arizona fab-lab. Look, even Taiwan is scared of possible conflict and is hedging on the physical safety of the USA."

I don't think that's the case, as I understand it this comes from the US wanting to onshore some of TSMC's capabilities and Taiwan screwing up electricity production on the island.

It does Taiwan the government and ruling class no good whatsoever to place assets beyond the PRC's military reach, rather the incentives are entirely opposite of that. The more valuable TSMC's fab lines there are, the more incentive the US has to help with the ROC's defense, or war if it comes to that. Which in the case of torpedoes from attack subs can even be done with some plausible deniability.