Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Silence About Trump's Mugging of Broadcom Is Deafening


By John Tamny

A strange thing happened during World War I.  As the western world set about trying to commit suicide in its pursuit of a needless war, U.S. exports to Scandinavian countries surged.

Why the sudden demand for U.S. products from that part of the world? The answer is that there wasn’t.  What happened is that the U.S. had slapped a trade embargo on Germany.  No big deal.  Germans continued to import and consume U.S. goods and services; albeit from countries the U.S. hadn’t embargoed.

The simple truth is that if you’re producing, you’re importing.  And to import, which is the sole purpose of production, you’re exporting.  The trade could be with a producer on the other side of town, or on the other side of the world.  This trade occurs among the productive, and without regard to wholly symbolic “embargoes.”

Which brings us to Donald Trump’s wholly inexcusable decision on Monday to block Broadcom’s attempted acquisition of Qualcomm.  The president excused the inexcusable with the always empty claim that our “national security” was put at risk by the combination.  Supposedly Singapore-domiciled Broadcom would favor Chinese telecom giant Huawei over U.S. players, and the latter would empower Huawei to somehow set the 5G wireless standard.  Ok, but so what? 

And while it dumbs down what is a ridiculous conversation to even mention this, the simple truth is that Broadcom is not a Singaporean company, nor is it Chinese.  It’s largely based in San Jose, CA.  Its executive team is 100% comprised of U.S. citizens.  Eight out of ten board members are U.S. citizens, not to mention that Broadcom employs 8,600 Americans in over twenty-five U.S. states.

Broadcom is Singapore based for a good, pro-shareholder reason.  It’s got a better tax environment.

Read the rest here.



2 comments:

  1. You are right! If a Chinese company purchases Raytheon or Northrop or Boeing, who gives a damn? That's the problem with you libertardians. Most corporations are mega corps with no loyalty to the country they reside or originally created. I agree there are way too many taxes and regulations

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  2. A company should be loyal to the country in which it was created, even if the government of that country taxes and regulates the company into oblivion.

    "Hold still, and let us rob you! Stop being so unpatriotic!"

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