"Business Iron Curtain": What Trump's War on Intel Signals
The dangerous precedent of targeting executives for geopolitical gain
At the end of last month, Intel made a shocking announcement: it was cancelling its chip projects in Europe, specifically Germany and Poland. Announced in 2022, these factories, valued at €80 billion and supported through government subsidies, were at the center of Europe’s drive to establish “tech sovereignty” and increase its share of advanced global chipmaking to 20% by 2030 (up from 10%). They were also a new expansion of America’s technology footprint in the West, at a moment when China was making significant inroads, such as by localizing EV production in markets like Hungary.
The factory cancellations were announced in a letter penned by Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan. At the time, they caused little uproar—in part because the German plant had been frozen last September, around the same time that rumors emerged of a possible Qualcomm acquisition of Intel, and a few months after Intel paused a separate project in Israel.
(“Business Iron Curtain” is a concept/expression of The Geopolitical Business, Inc)
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