I have some thoughts on this I'll post as a comment. But basically the predictions of their re-shoring being a total bust were nonsense. It doesn't matter at the end of the day if their efficiency is only 80% of that of their fabs on the island, if it's enough to be part of what supplies the entire west with all they need for laptops and smartphones and gaming consoles then it's enough to no longer need that occupied part of China or care what their actions taken against China result in as far as consequences.
I feel I need to point out that there have been those who for years have been crowing about the imminent collapse of the US, how they're helpless, powerless.
How there's no hope of re-shoring, how it's all boondoggle with all the profits pocketed but seeing this along with some news on Intel's progress on a US fab has left a need in me to push back on that.
There are frankly some people here who are optimistic to the point of being misleading about how things are going to go.
The US is still incredibly strong. They still have incredible assets, decent universities, they can attract talent from Europe and many other parts of the world and they can build these facilities.
Let's not forget the Americans were the first to develop this field of technology. It was exported to Asia for cost cutting but the knowledge was never burned and the key chip-making tech of perhaps the rest of this decade is in western controlled hands in the Netherlands.
I want to point out this is a very real re-shoring achievement. And how it means even with inefficiencies compared to production in reactionary occupied Chinese Taiwan the US will hardly suffer their ability to make electronics imploding should they start something over Taiwan and blow up the factories or have them denied use of them through extended PLAN naval blockade.
Frankly I feel the US still has decades of life in it left not as a uni-polar hegemon (I believe the Ukraine situation has been the start of that, the end of their unipolarity) but as a great power, as the perhaps dominant power with advantages as it was vs the Soviet Union despite the many proud achievements.
This is not exactly news any of us want to hear but I think it's important to swallow and understand. What broke the spirits and brains of so many comrades in the 90s was the fall of the USSR and the loss of hope. I believe it is ultimately counter-productive and dangerous to rigidly insist all is going great and that our victory is very close at hand with all these very specific predictions like the US being helpless about this or that or how they can't reshore this or that when practice is bearing out they can. Because when you do that, many comrades when it doesn't come to pass become dispirited because they were told to be ready for a 100m dash race when in reality the race is a marathon spanning 4000m and they must pace themselves accordingly.
Now obviously some of this has a cost but the contradictions aren't going to really hit home at crushing levels that might overcome all the propaganda I feel for some decades yet in the US even in a situation of extensive decoupling from China and enforcement of cold war era bloc politics including blockades and sanctions. I just think the US has a lot of reserves of strength to draw on and that they're beginning to fortify their position and prepare to hammer China, hence the project is going to take longer and most likely though conditions in the imperial core will get worse they will not get revolutionary I fear in this decade and maybe not even in next.
I agree that US remains a powerful country, but its global dominance is now over. Ukraine has fundamentally changed both geopolitical and economic situation. BRICS has become a viable alternative to the US economic system, and that undermines the very foundation of the US global dominance.
If you look at the history of US interventions, they always start by using the financial system to undermine the economy and create unrest that can be further exploited. Those days are now over because countries can trade entirely outside the US system. Not only that, but vast majority of resources, labor, and manufacturing capacity exists outside the west.
While the US is able to do its own manufacturing, it's far from being self sufficient in that regard. The difficulties the US had in re-shoring just one fab illustrate what a herculean task it would be to achieve self-sufficiency. Personally, I don't see how that's possible without massive state intervention which isn't politically palatable in US.
Contrast this with China, where state driven economy is accomplishing unbelievable feats each and every year. The progress China made with chip production eclipse what the US managed to achieve with re-shoring. China is now dominating across the whole science and technology spectrum. This gap will only continue to widen going forward.
Furthermore, the US finds itself in increasingly volatile situation in terms of internal politics. The country is deeply divided politically with two separate visions for what the US is. Each camp sees the other as a mortal enemy that's destroying the country. As material conditions continue to decline the animosity will only increase going forward, and it will eventually boil over into civil unrest.
I simply can't see how the US can hobble along for decades given the current economic reality of the country. The simple fact is that the cost of living continues to outpace salaries, and people are increasingly forced to use up their existing savings and go into debt just to make ends meet. We're already seeing people defaulting on their credit card debt, their car payments, and soon their mortgages. That will lead to another financial crisis which could easily turn into mass civil unrest and even a civil war.
My expectation is that the best case scenario for the US is that it manages to rally the G7 bloc around it, and rule over its diminished empire. However, even that is not a given with the developments we're already seeing happening in Europe. Both Germany and France are seeing huge rise in nationalism that's only going to keep growing. As US faces its own economic troubles, and the desire to contain China, it will be forced to cut support for Europe which will only feed into resentment that's brewing.
In my view, the biggest danger the US poses to the world is that it will start a nuclear holocaust when it becomes clear that its position as a hegemon is untenable.
With climate change being inevitable now and leading to more and more catastrophes, massive refugee streams and conflict and wars, the USA is in a unique position with only two borders to friendly countries and two oceans effectively protecting them. Especially after the oil that fuel big warships becomes too scarce.
Of course it's speculation how exactly this will play out, but I believe Europe, Africa, India, China, Russia will all be embroiled in the "climate wars" while the US can continue to snipe from their big continent.
The only thing they really have to do is weaken their opponents and then draw back and avoid being drawn into a nuclear war. Then they win by default.
PS: Of course having high tech chip manufacturing is essential to that.
I'm not sure that's actually going to help the US all that much. After decades of destabilizing Latin America, the US will likely be faced with a massive refugee crisis in the south. Meanwhile, Mexico is becoming a lot less friendly towards the US as any body who's been paying attention to the rhetoric from AMLO would know. It's even possible that Mexico may join BRICS in the near future which is an economic bloc in direct competition with the US.
Not only that, but it may face an internal refugee crises as parts of the country become unlivable. There are already major rivers and reservoirs drying up as we speak, and this will lead to millions of people being displaced. US could also face droughts that could easily lead to food shortages and even famines. The framing practices in US make this all the more likely given that they're stripping the soil.
Furthermore, the US being geographically cut off while not being self sufficient means that it's uniquely reliant on supply chains across the ocean. As these supply chains become disrupted, that will cause major economic problems.
Seem far more likely that Africa, India, China, and Russia will help and support stabilize each other because it's in their common interest to do so.
Yeah true, but producing enough basic calories to feed their own population will never be a problem for the US. And they are engaging in protectionism. As long as the US doesn't disintegrate into civil war, this advantage of their geographic location and size remains.
So yeah the best strategy for China is to remain friendly and non-aggressive and maintain minimal economic stability for their neighbors. And try to increase economic and social instability and dependence in the US. But you see how the US is poking the bear and now china, they want the instability. And Europe, Russia, China and India at each others throats.
So if / when there is a gradual collapse of our global civilization, the US could switch fully to that strategy and just continue to destabilize and start proxy wars all around the world rather cheaply.
I don't know about Mexico, but there are studies that large parts of India could become literally uninhabitable with too high wet bulb temperatures. After that you can image the talk about "Living space in the north" in Siberia. Plus many other places and large cities near the rising oceans. How can there not be endless conflict spilling out and through the many porous borders.
It's painful to consider, but I don't see the US "loosing" except for civil war or nuclear war. They will have massive problems but they just have to loose less quickly than the rest of the world.
Heatwaves have already resulted in massive crop loss in 2021. Over 21 billion in crop losses was recorded both in 2022 and in 2023. Meanwhile, soil erosion makes the problem even worse, and scientists are already warning that it is threatening food security. I encourage you to read up on the dust bowl to see where this is all going.
Incidentally, here's a good overview of where farming situation is headed https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5633916/5068182
The actual best strategy for China is to make friends with Russia who can guarantee supply of resources that China needs and to focus on developing Eurasia with projects like BRI which is precisely what China is doing. In parallel, China will continue to decouple from the US and western economies. This process is already well under way.
That may happen, however that's not going to lead to the climate wars you imagine. Once such an event happens, people will simply die out. They will have no time or the means to migrate anywhere. It's also worth noting that US is quite vulnerable to climate disasters as well. The problems of droughts, large scale natural disasters like megafires, hurricanes, and floodings, all apply to US.
Civil war is the most likely scenario for the US in the coming years. It will be fuelled by the collapsing standard of living, natural disasters, lack of social cohesion. This process has already started and it's very likely irreversible.
Yeah I know but thanks for the links. No question it will get bad, but it will be worse almost everywhere else in the world. The US has much more land compared to the population than it's rivals.
In the extreme you only need about 90000 km² arable land (~ size of Indiana) to grow enough potatoes to feed the entirety of the US (napkin math). The area of France could feed the entire world population. Today we have insane amount of "calorie waste" growing luxury foods like beef and almonds and chocolate and overfishing. So there is a lot of buffer for calories, even with soil degradation.
My point is this: Starvation won't be an existential threat to the US. Two oceans provide a lot of security, and options for geopolitical strategies. The only thing that can destroy the US is the US itself. Or nuclear war.
While conflicts and collapse of global trade could easily make starvation an existential threat or "threat multiplier" for Europe, India and China. And many other countries on their large and porous borders.
That's a bold statement, and not really sure what you base that on. For example, it's almost certain that things won't get as bad in Russia or Canada. The reality is that global climate is an incredibly complex system and nobody really knows how bad things will get, and where it will be the worst. For example, it's quite possible that it's actually cooler climates that will end up being more affected because that's where the most drastic temperature changes will happen as opposed to places that are already close to global maximum.
Actually turning all that land into farm land would be a monumental project. The US isn't even capable of maintaining its bridges right now that are at risk of imminent collapse, you really think that the US would be able to mobilize to turn a land area the size of France into effective farmland in time? https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a62073448/climate-change-bridges/
The problem here isn't purely technical, it's a question of policy and logistics. The US is a dysfunctional state that's not capable of marshalling large scale projects. Dealing with climate change is going to require a level of organization that's simply not present in the country.
That's one of the reasons both China and India keep Russia as a close partner. Europe is likely very much fucked however. Also worth noting that China is now leading the world in indoor farming, which is one of the best ways to mitigate unpredictable weather.
I fell we have lost ourselves in the analysis of the situation and therefore need to take a step back, return to the basics and as MLs remember to use diamat to try and see the big picture.
Since the fall of the USSR in the 90s, the principle contradiction in global economics has been the Us-China one. And for most of this period the Us has been the leading aspect of that contradiction, as it already started as a imperialist potency while China was still in the middle of its poverty alleviation plan, but since the 2008 crisis China has begun a process of reducing its dependence on western economics and preparing itself to take the place of the main aspect in the future.
And in my opinion ever since COVID and the consequences of how each country handled it, China has taken the leading role in that contradiction and consequently it is now what defines the nature of world economics, which is why we are seeing so many changes in geo-politics recently, both from China trying to assert its position with the de-dollarisation of global trade and the increase of allied countries with BRICS, and from the Us reaction with the Ukraine war and now with the government trying to re-invest in its own industry.
Without discussing the important aspect of imperialism and whether or not the Us still has the infrastructure to produce goods at a competitive price with China, the main focus of my comment is to bring attention to the fact that this is all part of a ongoing process with both sides struggling for the leading role in the global economy contradiction. So even tough saying that the Us is collapsing or they are powerless is hopelessly unmaterialistic, we should exalt the fact that China is becoming the principle aspect and that process is only going to keep changing, in both quantitative and qualitative ways, until the Us has no more place in the global economic contradiction.
A couple of things come to mind with this. Firstly, this reshoring has required a colossal subvention by the state. The money printer can currently go brr all day long, but if every reshoring that was needed required such intervention then this would not be feasible, especially considering the balancing act that's currently needed to counter inflation. Dedollarisation that's continuing apace further threatens this model. Already we have Trump recently threatening states that plan to trade in non-dollar currencies.
The reason for the deindustrialisation in the first place has not gone away. The inevitable march towards the export of finance capital being of primary importance to the imperialist state will continue. This seems to be a panicky flagship example. Root causes have not been addressed, and won't be.
But at the same time I do take your point that we're probably overstating the situation. I hope not by much.
Agree with everything you said but I would like to see the plant come into full operational capacity. I don't really have a good reason to be skpetical but this is a bit unprecedented so I want to wait till the end.
"Company reports that things will go incredibly well" is very skepticism-worthy
It's three fabs. Intel, meanwhile, is falling apart.
The important thing, imo, is that the US doesn't achieve full chip independence before 2030, which allows a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue (i.e, Chinese customs blockade redirecting Taiwanese shipping and passenger traffic to China). I don't see American reshoring settling the issue early, even though Intel is likely to get automated fabs up by 2028.
I have similar thoughts. I think that unfortunately, the U.S. will remain the dominant power for a long while. I remain hopeful that it's for less time than most of us think, but I still see years bare minimum, possibly decades.
I'd love to be wrong, and as Lenin said, sometimes years worth of history happens in weeks.
I don't want any of us to become dispirited if the time until imperialism collapses doesn't follow our schedule.
The USA is not going to collapse into the Stone Age any time soon and anyone who was saying such things was delusional. The USA will be one of the poles of the multipolar world.
You are acting like this news in the article is a huge surprise when it is in fact not surprising that eventually the facility would match capabilities of other similar facilities. It is not a particularly yuge achievement to merely replicate what they could already do. The fact that it was delayed so long is embarrassing however.
This is part of a larger trend of the USA stripping valuables from its vassals as discussed in earlier threads. The vassals in Europe have already been severely damaged and the libs who were planning to move to Europe are probably reconsidering those plans.
I agree. Yet time and again I see these predictions that the US is doomed, that by 2030s they're going to be in revolutionary conditions or collapsed from the weight of their failures.
I mean it should come as a huge surprise to those here who have been mocking the US effort and saying things like they'd never get these up anytime soon, how the capitalists would pocket all the money, how TSMC would deliberately sabotage things to maintain their control in Taiwan, and on and on. If you took as gospel some of the things I've seen highly upvoted here you'd be shocked to see this and indeed I was a little saddened, not shocked, but saddened because I suppose I thought they might be dysfunctional enough that this could drag on through the middle of this decade into the latter half and really slow them down and buy China time.
Agreed. Not only stripping things like industry but in the process hollowing out living conditions in vassals to allow them in the near future to attract their best talent and bring them to the US (perhaps at discount rates compared to American workers in some cases due to desperation). They are drawing the strength they lent their vassals back to them for the final stand, fortifying their position.
I would like to see such direct quotes addressed then rather than sniping at people who can't defend themselves because they have no apparent substantive existence.
It also just seems like arguing over future prediction narratives and although I can sort of understand the need to direct people such that they are not complacent, for example, there's a point where it falls off for me and it starts sounding like trying to be the accurate seer without our intervention in the world. One of the key points of all of this ideological stuff we focus on in spaces like this, is that we need to intervene, and we need to do it in a way that will make a difference toward our cause. We are not actually helpless, nor are we entirely removed from what is happening, no matter how the system can make it feel sometimes. The right organized action in the right place at the right time can change a lot. I would much rather people be focusing on that, instead of trying to out-predict each other on when US hegemony will collapse, as if from an outsider's perspective, when it impacts everyone on the planet. Edit: And to be clear, I don't mean discussing things that could get you into trouble, I just mean focus more on helping people understand what can be done and less on any narrative feeling of inevitability, regardless of what the narrative is.