When President Trump placed tariffs on almost every country in the world, it up ended the global supply chains. It may have the effect which the President wants, although the reality is if manufacturing does come back, most of it will be automated. New automated warehouses which used to hire thousands of high school graduates, will do most of the work with a hundred or less. The other jobs will be in robotics and maintenance of the robotic systems. Often times we think as President Trump doing something different, in reality every country has some sort of list, it is just not across every industry.

In an article from Reuters, Taiwan added China’s Huawei Technologies and SMIC (Semi-conductor Manufacturing International Corp) to its export control lists. SMIC is China’s largest chip maker.

In Taiwan the list is made by the Economy Ministry and to export to companies on the list will need government approval.

Taiwan is home to TSMC which is the world’s largest contract chipmaker and major supplier to market leader Nvidia. Both Huawei and SMIC are working hard to catch up to Nvidia’s lead in the chip-technology race.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every country has some form of regulation to protect and not directly help who they consider to be the “enemy” of the country. The more advanced the knowledge and/or technology the more the regulations come forth. In most industries there are backdoors for the right price, but the long-term process is through government regulations. For the investments you own, the company wants to have clear regulations and good relationships with the government. If they do not, those regulations will come out of the rule book and be applied to the company.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.