Mr. Pelosi invested over a million in the semiconductor industry before the bill including 70billion support for that industry. And he dumped more, taking a big loss:
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband sold his shares of chipmaker Nvidia on Tuesday, days before the House is expected to consider legislation providing subsidies and tax credits worth over $70 billion to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry.
www.reuters.com
If anything, it’s good material to spin. The suggestion Mrs. Pelosi is trying to trigger ww3 to make money on chips is of course completely ludicrous. Putting aside the cynicism, there’s no guarantee it would a profitable decision.
The world, including China, can at this moment anyway, not do without those chip factories in Taiwan. China can’t easily do without the 50% of Taiwanese graduates who work in China either, they need their brains. People heavily underestimate the knowledge and skills and technology required to make the semiconductors Taiwan makes. It’s not like Samsung making knockoff iPhones, it’s like competing with NASA. There’s only one company in the world that makes the $200-300mil machines required to make today’s advanced chips as Taiwan does, ASML, and there’s only one country they explicitly don’t sell to: China. Since it’s pretty much impossible to conquer Taiwan by force while leaving the factories and supply chain intact, China would have to be willing to economically self-destruct, nobody would be hurt more than China. Putin didn’t care about that but I don’t think China is inspired by Russia‘s current situation. China is catching up, and Taiwan is at serious risk, but not today, nor next month.
That sums it up. They can flex all they want, they’re not going to risk what they built up over the past decades, the very source of their power.