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Trump Blocks China-Backed Takeover of US Chip Maker 'Lattice Semi' (cnn.com)
MountainLogic shares a report from CNN: President Trump has stopped the takeover of an American chip maker by a private equity firm with ties to China. The deal, which would have seen China-backed Canyon Bridge Capital Partners acquire Lattice Semiconductors, was blocked over national security concerns. "Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday. The national security risk included "the potential transfer of intellectual property" to the Chinese-backed company and the "Chinese government's role in supporting this transaction," according to Mnuchin's statement. Those are sensitive matters: the Trump administration launched an investigation last month into whether China is unfairly getting hold of American technology and intellectual property. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews deals that could result in a foreign entity taking control of an American company, had previously recommended halting the deal. Lattice CEO Darin G. Billerbeck called the outcome "disappointing" and called the proposed acquisition "an excellent deal" for Lattice and for "expanding the opportunity to keep jobs in America." According to CNN, Lattice currently employs 300 people in Oregon -- and Canyon Bridge has committed to adding 350 more if the takeover deal went through.
that a large part of the technology was probably researched and developed by chinese nationals on H1B visas. American culture has been dumbening down young americans for so long that they can't keep their tech sector afloat on their own. If you look at the research coming out of prestigious American universities they all mostly bear the names of Chinese and Indian students.
Posting an article from CNN, it isn't surprising the rhetoric used to make this look like Trump is using a heavy hand, however moves like this are routine and typical of any president.
There is a special government office dedicated to approving buyouts of US companies that have national security concerns. I don't remember if they fall under the DoD or some other agency but all they do is research potential implications and approve a merger outright or with conditions. Or recommend it not go through.
I doubt the President actually has any say or cares about these things.
I can't believe this total horse shit out of Trump. Oh wait, yes I can.
This is one of those feel-good two-minutes-of-hate articles that Slashdot likes to post to bash Trump without regard to the content of the story.
For example, if the exact opposite decision had occurred and the sale had gone through, we'd see the usual trolls bashing Trump as being an anti-science moron who was too stupid to understand the technology being given to China. Instead, he'd be bashed as being a Wall Street insider who is personally selling American technology to China in some sort of illegal "collusion"*.
* Hilariously ironic to anybody who was half-awake during the election and paid attention to where Wall Street actually dumped its election money (hint: It wasn't on Trump). Not to mention when the Clinton who actually won the presidential election actually *did* transfer rocket technology to China that probably ended up getting to North Korea eventually.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
I really doubt he'll do anything because most of the states passing out the government tit are republican states.
I mean, what's the difference.... a Chinese org buying an American company or a Taiwanese(Largest private Chinese employer) building chinese designed parts in America. Hmmmmmm? Oh wait, one requires Americans to build the spy parts... #MAGA!!11zomg
"The president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition."
Why or how can a head of state interrupt a single business transaction?
Seriously... US is considered democracy par excellence. My guess is that the rest of the world simply has never understood the level of control that POTUS has over the country. So far, most presidents have not executed this control. But Trump has stepped down from governance to management.
Is this how it should be?
Do you (the US) plan to change this?
...called his buddy, "Yeah, it's done. Go ahead and buy it for fifty cents on the dollar. Use the money you made by shorting Boeing."
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Does Trump do everything?
Yeah, I mean blaming a president for things he wasn't involved in is a totally new and disturbing trend started by this election.
Thanks Obama.
He's just saving his Chinese buddies from a bad investment. The company will have no future after Trump shuts down the internet to fight terrorism.
As long infestation with all kind of patents trolls continue, China will always win.
All patent trolls must be squashed without the right to appeal.
I dunno what the government has to do with this particular deal, but if fears of intellectual property going to another country is the real reason here, isn't this a bit too little too late already?
Not sure if people realize this, but chinese conglomerates have been buying american technology companies for quite a while now. Not only tech too... let's see if some people recognize some of the "american giants" that are now owned by chinese conglomerates:
AMC movie theater chain, Smithfield Foods, Legendary Entertainment Group, Dick Clark Productions, General Electric, The Waldorf-Astoria, whole bunch of Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Resort, Riot Games, Ingram Micro, International Data Group (IDG of Computerworld/Macworld fame), Motorola (bought by Google, re-sold to Lenovo), Terex Corp... heck, Chicago Stock Exchange might end up sold to a chinese conglomerate. Think about that.
A whole ton of intellectual property already went out of the country. And sure, I'm not against countries trying to keep their intellectual property inside the country... in the past, the US is well known for doing similar business with BRICS countries, taking over a whole ton of businesses and research from those to get a hold of IPs. But it kinda sounds like there's more to that.
I used to think liberals just played stupid to make talking points. However, I was wrong. They are just that stupid and have no understanding on economics, how voting works and why, or basic civics.
It has become absolutely worthless discussing issues with them because they are unable to understand basic concepts. This is why most of their retorts are "Nazi!" and "Racists!". They start using those words when the talk is above their understanding and they are too embarrassed to admit it.
Just don't bother discussing things with them and call them complete morons when they say stupid things like kaur did. He is either way too dumb to possibly understand the difference between a Republic or Democracy, or he will lie his head off pretending there isn't one. Either way discussing with him is pointless and will end up with him calling you a racist.
Now China can ignore Lattices patents /IP because that is the justification behind patents.
Unless it was a secret patent that included backdoors with admin/admin coded.
China did not need to purchase Lattice, and it would be a bad deal if US gov did a Leveno or Kaspersky post purchase. OK, now they willo have to produce something similar with a different part number. Big deal.
military related manufactured can just copy IP and the courts can just say that any IP rights lawsuit can't not go to trial. And the DMCA does not apply as well.
Ostensible US Chip Maker """Lattice Semi,""" which I'll quote because I've never heard of them before.
. o O { Might have to do some googling. }
It used to be that the US would simply out-compete other countries when it came to investing in science and technology. Now there's a disconnect between the value the US government sees and the value US investors see.
Why are these companies courting Chinese investors? Even with all the hand wringing over high valuations, US investors don't value (most) US tech companies as highly as investors outside the US. These Chinese investors were willing to pay $1.3 billion for a company US investors have valued at $0.7 billion. If I was the CEO of Lattice (or an employee with stock), I'd be pretty upset right now.
If working on tech the government considers critical means you get 60 cents on the dollar for your work, we're not going to be getting a lot of good people working on that tech.
It's a shame that newegg's sale to some Chinese douchebags wasn't blocked. That was an absolute disgrace and had US security concerns.
The Trump administration is trying to ratchet up economic pain on China to get them to help curb their client state, North Korea, and its nuclear ambitions. This may be part of that as well. Or maybe it's the entire reason, who knows?
Perhaps one of them will get in on a diversity hire and take notes.
This seems odd, i always thougt that the gouverment was all on fast cash.
I've heard Citizens United brought up at least 100 times. I've yet to hear a liberal say what the lawsuit was ACTUALLY about, or explain how the campaign finance law put into place didn't conflict with the first amendment. I've come to the conclusion they are just too dumb to understand that a law that prevents individuals from speaking in a public manner conflicts with "Congress shall pass no law ... abridging freedom of speech...".
They just don't understand, or are unable to read. They get talking points and instead of trying to learn from them, they just repeat them blindly calling anyone who disagrees names.
I've even sent a liberal the ACTUAL text of the law, and the 1st amendment, where it is perfectly clear how the law was illegal and they couldn't understand. They have become so stupid you can't debate them anymore, and they are PROUD of how dumb they are, so it isn't likely to get better.
When governments are purchasing companies, that becomes dangerous. Imagine if the US went around buying companies around the world.
You mean the courts didin't decide to block Trump for infringing on China's rights?
Is some stupid here claiming China can't make its own FPGA?
I would rather China did, upload some datasheets, and sell them for $3, and then we can have this conversation again and it would be totally pointless.
California Mineral Pass is a huge mine that produces rare earth and thorium. Chinese company just put in to but it ( the main American company bid 20M, while the chinese backed bid 20.5M; were supposed to be .5M difference and was supposedly bid blind ). They have already indicated that they will shut it down even though it is the world's most economically feasible REE mine.
Trump needs to block this and more importantly, get REE going in America again. This is easy to do with Tesla and their Model 3. Model S/X did used AC motors so did not have magnets. BUT, model 3 DOES use DC motors with REE magnets. This is idea.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.