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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. In the case of

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Speaker 1: Intel is interesting, but I hope I'm going to have

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Speaker 1: many more cases like it.

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Speaker 2: You know, you do have stupid people say, oh, that's

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Speaker 2: a shame.

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Speaker 1: It's not a shame.

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Speaker 2: It's called business.

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Speaker 3: I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,

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Speaker 3: and this is trump Andomics, the podcast that looks at

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Speaker 3: the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped

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Speaker 3: the global economy, and what on earth is going to

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Speaker 3: happen next. This week, we're sparing a thought for the

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Speaker 3: boardrooms of corporate America and how trump Andomics is working

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Speaker 3: out for them. Donald Trump has involved himself more directly

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Speaker 3: in American businesses on a wider range of issues than

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Speaker 3: any president in living memory. He weighs in on social media,

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Speaker 3: in the courts, and especially in the Oval office. So

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Speaker 3: is it just Trump being Trump? Or will history also

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Speaker 3: say this was the point where the US embraced the

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Speaker 3: kind of state run capitalism previously associated with Moscow or Beijing.

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Speaker 3: Just a few examples to introduce the thought. In late August,

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Speaker 3: you'll remember, the President sealed the deal that gave the

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Speaker 3: US government a nearly ten percent stake in Intel.

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Speaker 2: Corps, celebrating that he got it the zero what this

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Speaker 2: means future?

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Speaker 3: Shortly after calling on social media for the CEO of

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Speaker 3: that semiconductor company to resign, the President's banned American chipmakers

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Speaker 3: from exporting chips to China, only to change his mind

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Speaker 3: a few months later after the CEO of the chip

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Speaker 3: giant in Vidia, paid the President to visit and agreed

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Speaker 3: to pay the government a fifteen percent tax on those

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Speaker 3: chip sales.

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Speaker 2: Of the revenues that they make from those sales into

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Speaker 2: the China market of the age twenty when it comes

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Speaker 2: to Nvidia or AMD's equivalent once they start shipping those.

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Speaker 3: Something we don't yet know is even constitutional. America's commander

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Speaker 3: in chief has also weighed in on everything from changed

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Speaker 3: restaurant logos and clothing commercials causing stocks to jump or

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Speaker 3: sink on the basis of late night truth social posts.

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Speaker 1: American Eagle shows are up twenty four percent right now,

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Speaker 1: and this is after President Donald Trump came out in

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Speaker 1: support of the controversial ad with Sidney Sweeney in it.

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Speaker 3: And just this week, for example, he weighed in on

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Speaker 3: a long standing feature of US corporate life, saying apropos

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Speaker 3: of nothing in particular that companies should have to report

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Speaker 3: on a six month basis their earnings, not quarterly. So

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Speaker 3: ow are CEO's handling all of this? What is the

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Speaker 3: Trump playbook for them? And where are all of those

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Speaker 3: interventions taking corporate America American capitalism. Well we're going to

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Speaker 3: get into that right now with Shelley Banjo, Bloomberg's Managing

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Speaker 3: editor for Global Business in America's who spends at least

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Speaker 3: part of her time talking to chief executives who come

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Speaker 3: through our doors in New York. Shelley, great to have.

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Speaker 1: You, Thanks for having me, And from.

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Speaker 3: San Francisco, Ian King, a reporter who covers semiconductors, hardware,

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Speaker 3: and telecoms for US at Bloomberg. Thanks Ian, follow that, Shelley.

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Speaker 3: I noticed one of our esteemed colleagues, West Kasova wrote

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Speaker 3: this week a brilliant CEO guide to getting what you

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Speaker 3: want out of Trump. I mean, if someone was trying

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Speaker 3: to devise MBA courses now on handling this second term

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Speaker 3: of President Donald Trump, you know, seven months in, what

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Speaker 3: do you think will be in that kind of class?

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Speaker 1: I think the first thing is do not come empty handed.

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Speaker 1: You know Wes's wonderful story, as you point out, talks

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Speaker 1: about this trophy that Tim Cook has prepared for him.

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Speaker 1: We had the Coca Cola CEO come in with a

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Speaker 1: personalized bottle for Trump and we can sort of mark

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Speaker 1: this or laugh, but the indication is I am here

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Speaker 1: to kiss the ring and I want to start that

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Speaker 1: from the outset, the way you would go and visit royalty.

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Speaker 3: We've been talking about this over the last few days.

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Speaker 3: It's not just these sort of you know, public times

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Speaker 3: where you go to the White House and you lobby.

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Speaker 3: It's also just the sort of never quite knowing what's

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Speaker 3: going to happen next.

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Speaker 1: Right exactly, because you can understand what Trump might be

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Speaker 1: after on you know, sort of the policies that he's into,

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Speaker 1: but as a CEO, you're sort of living in fear

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Speaker 1: that you're going to be the subject of a truth

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Speaker 1: social post. And that is something that businesses and CEOs

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Speaker 1: are are terrified of because it's very hard to plan for.

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Speaker 1: You can't really come up with a business case of

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Speaker 1: what to do when this happens. The one CEO we

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Speaker 1: had in last week told us that they actually did

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Speaker 1: do a simulation with a board of what happens when

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Speaker 1: you are the subject of a true social post. So

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Speaker 1: it's a conversation they're having at the board level.

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Speaker 3: And it's funny because I know people who do do

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Speaker 3: some of these trainings. And obviously our social media is

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Speaker 3: not a new thing, and I've heard sort of government

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Speaker 3: relations and others talk about how does one handle it

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Speaker 3: if there's a Twitter storm over something. You know, airlines

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Speaker 3: deal with it all the time when you've got you know,

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Speaker 3: some prominent person stuck in a long line all their

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Speaker 3: plane gets delayed. But I suspect, you know, there's a

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Speaker 3: whole different set of rules if you're dealing with the

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Speaker 3: commander in chief.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it moves market. We saw with the Cracker

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Speaker 1: Barrel example that they you know, spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time putting out a new logo didn't look all that

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Speaker 1: you know, controversial at the time. Cracker Barrel, the famous

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Speaker 1: US restaurant chain, faces and tense.

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Speaker 2: Backlash after it tried to swap its own logo for

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Speaker 2: a sleek new design and.

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Speaker 1: All of a sudden, it's sort of you know, stirred

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Speaker 1: up a storm saying, you know, why are you erasing

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Speaker 1: our history? And so there was a huge backlash, and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, Trump is weighing and

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Speaker 1: those stock prices going down, and this CEO has to

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Speaker 1: make decision. Am I going to stand up for this?

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Speaker 1: Am I going to you know, fall back? And in

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Speaker 1: the end they cave. They said, you know, we're going

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Speaker 1: to go We're going to go back to how it was.

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Speaker 1: We're sorry. And if you think about that exercise, you're

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Speaker 1: sitting there just developing a brand logo, you don't necessarily think, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: what is the president going to think about this rand logo?

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Speaker 3: We talk about audience of one, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And now and now you do. And so we had

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Speaker 1: the Alaska Airline CEO in a couple of days ago,

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Speaker 1: and I asked him about this because they also changed

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Speaker 1: their logo recently, and he said, it's not an excuse

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Speaker 1: to say like we didn't think about it anymore. Like

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Speaker 1: we live in this world where you have to think

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Speaker 1: about that. You have to think what's going to happen

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Speaker 1: if you know, the social media folks, if the president,

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Speaker 1: if whoever, is going to come out against you, what

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Speaker 1: is your plan? And the anxiety that he said he

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Speaker 1: was feeling as he was changing his logo.

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Speaker 3: So Ian We do know that the president likes doing

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Speaker 3: big deals and talking to big companies who then make

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Speaker 3: promises with lots of zeros attached. When it comes to

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Speaker 3: investment in other things. Obviously the big tech giants, the

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Speaker 3: likes of Google and Apple, you know, there's been a

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Speaker 3: lot of that in that area. But also in the

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Speaker 3: area that you cover, we're obviously thinking more and more

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Speaker 3: these days about AI and the semiconductor chips that go

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Speaker 3: into AI. You know, how has the world changed just

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Speaker 3: for the companies and that that you cover in the

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Speaker 3: last seven months.

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Speaker 2: I mean it had already changed. We inherited an environment

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Speaker 2: from the Biden administration where there was a unique level

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Speaker 2: of government interest, whether that government was in Washington or Beijing.

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Speaker 2: The industry had become a tool of geopolitics. What's changed

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Speaker 2: under the current president is the predictability. And on the

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Speaker 2: one hand, the CEOs of the companies that I believe

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Speaker 2: they've cracked the code. You know, they believe that sort

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Speaker 2: of flattery gets you everywhere. They have a certain pattern

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Speaker 2: in terms of behavior that they exhibit. Now they will

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Speaker 2: go to the White House, they will come out of

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Speaker 2: the security gains, they'll look into a TV camera and

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Speaker 2: they'll say the following words, which is, are we are

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Speaker 2: so lucky to have this president who is uniquely interested

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Speaker 2: in our industry, And then they will quote some large

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Speaker 2: dollar number which frankly, quite often isn't really related to

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Speaker 2: anything concrete. And that pattern appears to help them in

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Speaker 2: their relationships and allow them to open doors to other things.

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Speaker 2: But on the flip side of that, as Shelley said,

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Speaker 2: there's an element of unpredictability that has been introduced in

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Speaker 2: terms of we are one social media posting away from

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Speaker 2: a massive intervention in the fate of our company, in

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Speaker 2: our company's earnings and our company's profits, and I think

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Speaker 2: that is definitely taking its toll.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we obviously saw the kind of embarrassing example

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Speaker 3: of that. The off mic moment was when Mark Zuckerberg

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Speaker 3: had a Meta was kind of caught after one of

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Speaker 3: these sessions in the White House where he'd announced a

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Speaker 3: big number for what Meta was going to invest, and

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Speaker 3: then he was heard to be saying, oh, to the President,

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Speaker 3: I wasn't sure what number to use. I hope that

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Speaker 3: was all right right now, which sort of goes to

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Speaker 3: this choreography that people are engaging with and not necessarily

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Speaker 3: a great attention to what the actual number is, at

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Speaker 3: least from from a business standpoint. But I guess the

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Speaker 3: most extreme example ian for those who didn't haven't followed

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Speaker 3: every turn, was where we ended up, where we started

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Speaker 3: and where we ended up with the chief exec of Intel, Bhutan.

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Speaker 3: So just talk us through what happened to him, because

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Speaker 3: there was a sudden true social post about him saying

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Speaker 3: he must be conflicted and must resign, and then the

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Speaker 3: President said there is no other solution to this problem,

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Speaker 3: but then it turned out that there was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this was an alarming moment I think in corporate history.

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Speaker 2: This gentleman was brought in to rescue Intel. He is

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Speaker 2: of you know, he's originally Malaysia, he's an American citizen.

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Speaker 2: Now he's of Chinese background, and there was a political

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Speaker 2: so of campaign to try to undermine him because of

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Speaker 2: his investment links to China, links that we don't even

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Speaker 2: know exist anymore. But it was certainly historically was a case.

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Speaker 2: And what happens as the President saw that seized upon

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Speaker 2: it and immediately jumped to the conclusion that Bhutan, the

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Speaker 2: CEO of Intel, a publicly traded company, was in fact

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Speaker 2: conflicted and should step down. That was a call he

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Speaker 2: made a week later. Lit Bhutan is in the White House.

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Speaker 2: Everything is great, and this chipsacked money that had been

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Speaker 2: assigned to Intel under the Biden administration is suddenly switched

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Speaker 2: into shareholding stake for the US government in Intel. So

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Speaker 2: I mean, how do you follow that, how do you

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Speaker 2: plan for that? How do you run a company with

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Speaker 2: that kind of set of possibilities in the air. And

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Speaker 2: the answer is you don't. You just react, And that's

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Speaker 2: not a way to run a company.

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Speaker 3: There's been some Republicans and certainly some sort of pro

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Speaker 3: market conservative commentator who've raised both eyebrows at that deal.

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Speaker 3: But I think it's very striking how little opposition there's

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Speaker 3: been to it or sort of concerns about it. And

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Speaker 3: I guess one has to just for completeness. I mean

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Speaker 3: in video is the other area, the other big deal

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Speaker 3: that the President has made, which financially is probably even

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Speaker 3: more significant for the company We're talking about much bigger numbers,

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Speaker 3: but also could be quite significant strategically for the US.

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Speaker 2: Again, it's geopolitics influencing the US policy. The underlying desire

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Speaker 2: is to prevent China from getting access to advanced semiconductors,

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Speaker 2: because we believe in the US that is against national

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Speaker 2: security interests. But somehow that's become negotiable. Somehow that has

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Speaker 2: become the subject of a real estate deal. And if

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Speaker 2: in Video and AMD, which is a smaller company doing

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Speaker 2: roughly the same thing, are allowed to send a certain

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Speaker 2: type of chip to the China, now a reduced capability chip,

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Speaker 2: then they can do that, but with the provider that

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Speaker 2: they give the US government effectively a kickback fifteen percent

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Speaker 2: of that and as a whole, as you alluded to

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Speaker 2: us or concern about whether this is even legal. We

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Speaker 2: spoke with the CFO of Nvidia, so this is the

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Speaker 2: world's largest publicly traded corporation. We asked her about how

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Speaker 2: are you going to pay this fifteen percent and she said,

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Speaker 2: I'm not there's no rules, there's nothing that. Effectively, what

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Speaker 2: she said was, this is illegal. If I do this,

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Speaker 2: I'm breaching my fiduciary duty. Can't do it until they

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Speaker 2: give me a set of rules to do it. Those

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Speaker 2: rules have not emerged, so right now it's not going

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Speaker 2: to happen.

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Speaker 3: Shelly, I do want to get back to you because

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Speaker 3: something that strikes me when you think about the kind

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Speaker 3: of training that anyone who gets to the top of

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Speaker 3: a company will have had, either implicitly or explicitly. I

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Speaker 3: was sort of thinking about it as before we started this,

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Speaker 3: the implicit messaging has always been you want to do

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Speaker 3: everything you can to ingratiate yourself with the government whatever

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Speaker 3: country you are, but without it being evident and without

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Speaker 3: necessarily calling attention or raising any question marks. Whereas it

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Speaker 3: seems that this is the opposite in this administration. Whatever

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Speaker 3: you do to ingratiate yourself has to be completely open

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Speaker 3: and ideally you know, in the Oval Office with cameras rolling.

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Speaker 3: That is quite a shift, And I just wonder, you know,

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Speaker 3: are there even sort of legal worries in these boardrooms

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Speaker 3: about needing to really very publicly engage in sort of

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Speaker 3: quid pro quos with the federal government.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the most striking example of that has

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Speaker 1: obviously been Elon Musk and Tesla and sort of how

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Speaker 1: close you get to the president where you're literally in

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Speaker 1: the White House making and helping informing these decisions. And

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Speaker 1: we saw the impact on Tesla people stopped buying Tesla cars.

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Speaker 1: You can sort of negotiate how much of that had

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Speaker 1: to do with his association with Trump, how much it

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Speaker 1: had to do with other things. But you know, even

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Speaker 1: we had the board chair of Tesla into Bloomberg this

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Speaker 1: or this last week, and you know, even she said,

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Speaker 1: as part of the negotiations with Musk for his pay package,

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Speaker 1: like we would like to see him focus on Tesla,

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Speaker 1: And so, you know, it does sort of raise the

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Speaker 1: question of, you know, how much is it you're just

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Speaker 1: doing your job as CEO includes now managing the emotions

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Speaker 1: and the whims of the US President, and how close

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Speaker 1: is too close and how far is too far? I mean,

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Speaker 1: you haven't really seen a consumer backlash quite like at

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Speaker 1: Tesla at other companies, and so I think some Americans,

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Speaker 1: consumers and probably consumers around the world are sort of

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Speaker 1: inerrod to it a little bit. They understand that this

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Speaker 1: is part of the job. I think it's also a

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Speaker 1: question of are people really going to do what they

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Speaker 1: say that they're going to do, because I think a

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Speaker 1: hallmark of the Trump press tency is We're throwing a

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Speaker 1: lot of big numbers at you, a lot of big stuff,

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Speaker 1: a lot of big threats. You don't know which ones

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Speaker 1: are gonna come true. This week, you had the TikTok

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Speaker 1: deal come back into focus. I remember when I was

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Speaker 1: living in Hong Kong in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: you know, the first Trump presidency, we were talking about this,

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Speaker 1: and so, you know, fast forward to twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 1: we're still talking about the same thing that Tramp was

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Speaker 1: talking about. We're still talking about tariffs. Like there's some

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Speaker 1: things that just haven't happened yet. So how do you know,

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Speaker 1: as the CEO, which ones to take seriously and which

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Speaker 1: ones you don't? And I think the answer has become

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Speaker 1: as Ian sort of alluded to, like you have to

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Speaker 1: take them all seriously. But I don't know, you know,

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Speaker 1: how much do consumers really get impacted by that?

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Speaker 3: You know, A part of the story of American capitalism

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Speaker 3: was always sort of slightly economical with the truth. You know,

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Speaker 3: there has always been an enormous amount of subsidies and lobbying.

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Speaker 3: When I worked in the US Treasury, you know, having

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Speaker 3: been brought up in the UK, the half from American,

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Speaker 3: I was sometimes surprised by the sort of assumption that businesses,

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Speaker 3: the sort of the closeness of the lobbying and the

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Speaker 3: closeness of the business relationships was certainly something that was

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Speaker 3: different from the UK and seemed to be part of

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Speaker 3: the American tradition that you'd have businesses weighing in very

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Speaker 3: directly on you know, deals that were being done and

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Speaker 3: other things, and there was no question of any wrongdoing.

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Speaker 3: It was just like the way things happened. So, I mean,

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Speaker 3: given that, is it surprising that you haven't had more

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Speaker 3: businesses sort of say, hang on a minute, what kind

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Speaker 3: of capitalism is this?

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Speaker 1: For sure? And we're seeing that right now build up

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Speaker 1: all these companies, build up their presences in Washington. They're

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Speaker 1: hiring the firms that are aligned with Trump and people

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Speaker 1: who had come out of the Trump one point zero

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Speaker 1: administration who have now started out their own lobbying firms,

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Speaker 1: and they're coming out and saying that outright that we're

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Speaker 1: not hiding. This is what it means to be a

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Speaker 1: good CEO in this moment in twenty twenty five. And

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Speaker 1: so is our companies getting closer with the US government

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Speaker 1: or are the administration's goals Probably I'm not sure if

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Speaker 1: any of the consumers or investors seemed to care at

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Speaker 1: this moment. So far, we haven't seen in some sort

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Speaker 1: of big outcry or anything like that.

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Speaker 3: I guess so far we've mainly seen stock prices go

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Speaker 3: up rather than down, which makes a difference exactly Ian

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Speaker 3: if we just think about the potential long term implications

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Speaker 3: of this. And I've seen that there's been a debate

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Speaker 3: around this, some saying that America is embracing for better

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Speaker 3: or worse and more of a kind of Chinese style

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Speaker 3: state run capitalism. Other people I saw Michael Strain, the

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Speaker 3: director of Economic policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said,

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Speaker 3: you know, this is Trump being Trump. This is opportunism

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Speaker 3: and a sort of thrill about having deals being done

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Speaker 3: from Donald Trump. It's not a big ideological shift. I mean,

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Speaker 3: even those two examples that you and I just talked about,

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Speaker 3: taking a strategic share in an industry, a US company

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Speaker 3: that makes something chips that we know is going to

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Speaker 3: be sort of central to the future of the global economy,

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Speaker 3: it doesn't seem of all the things that Donald Trump's doing,

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Speaker 3: that didn't seem to me like the craziest thing. And

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Speaker 3: it certainly is no different from some countries you know

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Speaker 3: that aren't China, like France, for example.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when you unpack that there are a

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Speaker 2: number of elements which I think talk to your point here.

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Speaker 2: The first point is that he inherited and an apparatus

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Speaker 2: called the Chips Act from the Biden administration, and that

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Speaker 2: was the kind of Sauz Korea and Taiwanese development, state

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Speaker 2: directed capital development. Hey, we will give you money as

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Speaker 2: a company if you do this certain type of thing.

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Speaker 2: And that was the situation that Intel and a lot

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Speaker 2: of its peers were in. What Trump said all along

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Speaker 2: was I don't like this. This isn't market capitalism, this

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Speaker 2: isn't the kind of thing that the US government should

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Speaker 2: be doing. What we should do here is and then

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Speaker 2: turn this into a loan. So what there was a

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Speaker 2: lot of to and fro about this, But what he

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Speaker 2: did was turn it into basically taking a stake and

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Speaker 2: tried to sell that to his constituents, the US tax

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Speaker 2: players as hey, this is a win for us. We've

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Speaker 2: got something. This is a transaction. This is back to

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Speaker 2: that real estate deal mentality. So it was a complicated

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Speaker 2: situation there. The other side of it is the geopolitical thing.

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Speaker 2: There's one through line through the first Trump administration, the

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Speaker 2: Baden administration, and the current Trump administration, which is the

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Speaker 2: concern the geopolitical rivalry with China, and that is a constant,

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Speaker 2: that is something which has only increased. The only wrinkle

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Speaker 2: has been hold on them and it maybe we'll let

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Speaker 2: in video them, We'll let AMD give the Chinese some

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Speaker 2: of these old type chips, and that's the only wrinkle.

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Speaker 3: Well, and you say it's the only wrinkle. I mean,

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Speaker 3: we've discussed it in the past on this show with

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Speaker 3: from of our geoeconomists, at least one of whom was

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Speaker 3: very heavily involved in the Chips Act in the Biden

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Speaker 3: National Security Council. And I think that was the one

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Speaker 3: that everyone has found very hard to square. If you

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Speaker 3: think about the objectives of the first Trump administration highlighting

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Speaker 3: the risk of China, the way that Biden's administration kind

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Speaker 3: of institutionalized that and to some extent developed it in

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Speaker 3: the form of the Chips Act and some of the

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Speaker 3: export controls that they put on, and the way that

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Speaker 3: continued in the first few months of the Trump administration

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Speaker 3: with the initial ban on those chip sales. The reversal

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Speaker 3: of that, you might say, just for the sake of

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Speaker 3: a few bucks for the federal government, That's the one

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Speaker 3: that people find hard to square in the kind of

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Speaker 3: policy community. Is that also true in Silicon Valley or

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Speaker 3: they just think, oh great.

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Speaker 2: No, I think it's back to what we were talking

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Speaker 2: about earlier, which is the ability of CEOs to say

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Speaker 2: the right thing to appear at the right time. And

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Speaker 2: what has effectively happened here is that the Trump administration

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Speaker 2: has adopted the language and the thinking of In Video Corporation.

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Speaker 2: Here in Video has said, Look, these tips are so

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Speaker 2: old now they don't matter. We're not even sure that

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Speaker 2: the Chinese want them. Why can't we just send them

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Speaker 2: there anyway and get that bit of money that we'll

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Speaker 2: get for them, and we'll use that money to make

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Speaker 2: America great again by paying for our Otherwise, if we

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Speaker 2: don't do this, we't have any presence in China. They

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Speaker 2: do their own thing, and we've lost completely. And they've

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Speaker 2: constructed this logical framework that kind of has the cogs

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Speaker 2: have mashed with some of the geopolitical concerns, some of

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Speaker 2: the free market concerns that exist around this intervention and

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Speaker 2: made it work. And whether it's Howard Lutnik or others

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Speaker 2: have just decided to adopt this and allow this to happen,

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Speaker 2: and then you have the man at the top who said, well,

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Speaker 2: give me fifteen percent and you're okay. That I think,

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Speaker 2: and the way it was done has caused concern, But

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Speaker 2: the fundamental logic, I think a lot of the even

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Speaker 2: the hawks, are like, well, okay, I can see.

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Speaker 3: That, Shelley. I wonder whether anyone has observed that to you.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of deals that aren't really deals.

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Speaker 3: They're not deals in the kind of corporate sense of oh,

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Speaker 3: there's a bit of paper or many many pieces of

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Speaker 3: paper and lawyers in the room and kind of clear terms.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes they're unwritten. Sometimes we find in some of the

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Speaker 3: trade quote unquote deals that in the case of Vietnam,

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Speaker 3: for example, there was a profound disagreement about what the

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Speaker 3: actual deal was after it was supposed to have been done.

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Speaker 3: That is part of the issue, isn't it that this

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Speaker 3: is these deals are sort of semi deals until the

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Speaker 3: next deal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're squishy. And I think going back to your

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Speaker 1: original question of what is chapter one, two, three, four

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Speaker 1: of the Trump playbook, coming up with a big number

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Speaker 1: that can't necessarily be tracked and promising it to the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration probably deserves a chapter in that playbook, because

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Speaker 1: you know, you look at a company like Hyundai, you

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Speaker 1: look at these drug makers Johnson and Johnson. They're all

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Speaker 1: coming up with these numbers and they're putting it forth

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure that they can justify it. But some

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Speaker 1: of these numbers account for factories they built five years ago,

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Speaker 1: inspired by Trump, maybe in Trump one point I zero.

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Speaker 1: So they're squishy numbers, they're squishy deals. The examples that

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Speaker 1: Ian site are a little bit more specific, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of these manufacturing commitments that these companies have done,

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Speaker 1: and these ribbon cutting type scenarios are not some things

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Speaker 1: that you can necessarily try and really hold my accountable.

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Speaker 2: Shit.

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Speaker 3: I don't want to put you on the spot, but

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Speaker 3: just before we end, it occurs to me that before

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Speaker 3: you came back to New York and when you and

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Speaker 3: I first met in Hong Kong, and we tend to

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00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:12,879
Speaker 3: think that this is more of a quote unquote Asian

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Speaker 3: way of doing things, you know, to have more of

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Speaker 3: these kind of backroom deals and state government sort of

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00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 3: strategic involvement. Does it feel similar or does it feel

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Speaker 3: like something completely unique to Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: It's such astute question because when I was sort of

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Speaker 1: reflecting on this idea of is this just the now,

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Speaker 1: Is this the CEO saying I need to get through this,

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Speaker 1: I need to move on to the next thing, or

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Speaker 1: is there lasting impact? I think I came to the

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00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 1: conclusion that the lasting impact is that the window can shift,

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00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 1: and that you know, if Trump pushes the envelope. Now,

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00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 1: mixing my metaphors a little bit, but if Trump push

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00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: the pushes on the pushes the one you know right exactly,

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Speaker 1: then then it sort of like opens it up for

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Speaker 1: anything to happen. And that's sort of what had happened

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Speaker 1: with China in so many different ways over the last

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Speaker 1: you know, number of decades, right, You start to normalize

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00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: things little by little by little by little, and then

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00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: you look back and you see, wow, this actually this

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Speaker 1: whole thing has created monumental shift.

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Speaker 3: I wonder ian we think of the tech world now

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Speaker 3: and semiconductors in particular, as being something that is moving

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00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 3: incredibly fast and potentially decisions made now could be affecting,

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00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 3: you know, the whole path of AI as it sort

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00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 3: of takes hold of our economies and our societies. Do

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Speaker 3: you think there are some lasting shifts here or is

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00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 3: it going to be a sort of a kind of

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Speaker 3: Trumpian fever dream.

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Speaker 2: No. I think lasting shifts are in the all thing,

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00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 2: that there is an absolute policy in place, whether it's

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Speaker 2: in Beijing, whether it's in Washington, whether it's in this

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00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 2: whole or Taipei, and that structuring things in a way

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Speaker 2: that those economies and those sets of capabilities will succeed.

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Speaker 2: I lived in career for eleven years. Korean companies, they

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Speaker 2: succeeded because the government decided that semiconductors were important. Taiwan

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Speaker 2: t SMC, they succeeded partially because taipaid made that a

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Speaker 2: national priority. That's happening in the US, and that's unprecedented

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Speaker 2: obviously in many respects for the US. How it's done,

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Speaker 2: whether it's done in an organized fashion, whether it's done

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Speaker 2: in a logical fashion and a consistent fashion, to your point,

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Speaker 2: is really important because guess what, the chips that are

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Speaker 2: being designed today, the TIC chip technology that is being

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00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 2: designed today, won't really be relevant for at least two, three, four,

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Speaker 2: five years. And even though the industry is moving very quickly,

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Speaker 2: you are basically plotting your path towards success or disaster

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Speaker 2: right now. So again, this mixture of countervailing forces on

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00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 2: the one hand, yes, interest is good, Yes, capital is good. Yes,

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00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 2: using restrictions is good. On the flip side of it,

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Speaker 2: inconsistency is also kind of an anathem so the chip industry,

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Speaker 2: because it's such a difficult thing to do and it

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Speaker 2: plays out over such a long period.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think that is the point we've often reached

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Speaker 3: in these conversations. You know, in principle, quite a lot

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Speaker 3: happening here that could well make sense for America, for

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Speaker 3: the world, but the way it's being done and the

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Speaker 3: exact decisions raising some question marks and certainly changing the

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Speaker 3: way corporate America thinks about its relationship with the government.

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Speaker 3: Shelly Banjo, Ian King, thank you so much, thank you,

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Speaker 3: thank you, thanks for listening to trump Andomics from Bloomberg.

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Speaker 3: It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders and I was

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00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 3: joined this week by Bloomberg's Shelley Banjo and Ian King.

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Speaker 3: Trump Andomics was produced by Summer Sadi and Moses and

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00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 3: Dam with help from Amy Keen and special thanks this

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00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 3: week to Magnus Henrickson. Sound design is by Blake Maples

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00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 3: and Kelly Garry and Sage Bowman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.

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00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 3: To help others find Trump and nomics. Please rate and

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Speaker 3: review it highly Where for you listen