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Comment by taylodl | Hacker News Reader

"or face the punitive 100 percent tariff" - how is this not a you'd better do as I say, or I'll shoot my foot off situation?

Trump hails himself as a negotiating genius, so what am I missing here?

- Taiwan makes the bulk of the world's processors

- Building a new fab facility is both a money and time-consuming endeavor. Ironically, Trump's tariffs are destabilizing the global economy making such investments even less likely

- The demand for processors is relatively inelastic. The consumers will largely "eat" the cost increases due to tariffs

- The last point means Taiwan is relatively unharmed by the tariffs

Given this, what is Taiwan's motivation to capitulate to Trump's demands? From where I stand Taiwan appears to be holding all the cards and Trump has nothing - yet Trump somehow thinks he's going to use nothing to strong-arm a deal? Is this what everyone else sees or am I missing something?

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What you are missing is that Trump's bargaining piece is Taiwan's independence from China.

What you're missing is that the US's BATNA here is awful.

America relies on Taiwan for more than just advanced-node semiconductors. The island is the linchpin in the US's island chain strategy for the Pacific theater.

Abandoning Taiwan to the CPC would have a domino effect on US relations with the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, etc.; let China run wild in the US backyard and gain a monopoly on some critical supply chains while holding others in peril; and is effectively tantamount to ceding the Pacific to China without a fight.

The US abandoning Taiwan is simply not an option and Taiwan knows it.

And at this point the only question is when Taiwan will announce that they now have nukes and which neighboring countries they invited to join the program.

China owns half Trump's cabinet, but Xi's always wanted to invade Taiwan regardless of the consequences and this isn't a game he can win.

> [W]hen Taiwan will announce that they now have nukes

Doubties. ROC's strategy right now appears to basically be: Give PRC no good reason to invade and lots of good reasons not to.

Anyway PLA's invasion preparations are already nearly ripe and MSS would almost certainly detect nuclear weapons or delivery systems development. Then it's an easy and semi-legitimate casus belli and invasion is an urgent NatSec imperative before ROC manages breakout.

Trump removed that bargaining piece when he threatens to not support NATO allies and he fails to honor existing US treaties. Trump has seen to it that his word means absolutely nothing and treaties with the US are only worth the paper they're printed on. So no, there's no bargaining piece here. In fact, Taiwan gets assurance of US defense by retaining semiconductor production in Taiwan as the US is forced into a position of having to defend its supply chain.

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