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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.
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.
Some of Lattice FPGA parts have already been reverse engineered by a single German researcher. Makes these FPGA's very desirable to use. The complete toolchain is open-source and works great. I wish Xilinx would take notice and release some more info on their 7 series parts so someone could figure out the bitstream for them.
More info on Project Icestorm here: http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/
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
...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.
National Security /thread
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.
Simple congress enacted a law that lets the President do this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act
There are competent authorities for national security. They declare the policies, they set up the review and approval procedures and so on. Every country has them. Some other threads already mention them.
Why has the president need to step in?
Which part of the current regulation failed?
And, most importantly, do you WANT him to have this power?
Are you that ignorant that you're unaware of the distinction between a Democracy and a Republic? If you're not an American you may get a pass. If you're an American and you want to understand our political system you need to start reading.
Federalist #10 is probably the best place to start.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
This might surpise you, but the President is the EXECUTIVE branch of the government. Guess what the job of an executive is - managing. And it is utterly wrong to say other presidents didn't do it. For instance, here is Obama trying to block to the sale of a GERMAN chipmaker to the Chinese
The left has a hard time understanding that. They bitch and whine about how we need more laws and government, then they bitch about the laws and government when they finally get it pushed through.
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.
The 'competent authorities' are all part of the executive branch. They report to the President. The 'competent authorities' advise the president, he signs the order.
Are you implying that building the wall would be some sort of new law? It is not, the laws on entry to the country already exist, have for a long time, and were created by Congress. 'The wall' is just a means to enforce the law, which is the President's job.
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.
There are competent authorities for national security. They declare the policies, they set up the review and approval procedures and so on. Every country has them. Some other threads already mention them.
Why has the president need to step in?
Which part of the current regulation failed?
And, most importantly, do you WANT him to have this power?
Lets put this in perspective,
Trump has shown that he is willing to claim personal credit for things he had little or nothing to do with if he thinks his base will see it as a promise kept. After all, he personally has added 1 million jobs since becoming prez https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/24/trumps-claim-that-he-himself-created-1-million-jobs-as-president/?utm_term=.c131d8f4b007
In this case you can rest assured that the "normal competent national security authorities" had (almost certainly) already red flagged the sale, He is likely taking personal credit because it was "his administration" that red flagged the sale, and he believes it makes him look strong on national security.
To be fair to Trump, he wouldn't be the first (and certainly wont be the last) politician to take personal credit for the hard work of others.
You are misinformed.
The USA is both a democracy (or at least claims to be) and a republic.
Any country without a monarch is a republic, by definition.
A political system where the citizens can vote is a democracy. Otherwise it would be a dictatorship.
The USA is a representative democracy and not a direct democracy, like about just any country on earth (even though some have elements of direct democracy such as referendums). But it's still both a democracy and a republic, and there is absolutely nothing mutually exclusive between these two concepts.
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.
I think the reasons are different than you mention: 1) Chinese and Indian students are significantly filtered, so that only the very top students can apply to US schools. 2) In order to stay in the US, it is beneficial for foreigners to have advanced degrees; US citizens do not need the advanced degree to stay. 3) The demand for engineers is high, so many US-born graduates leave school as soon as they can earn a living.
Madison thought they were mutually exclusive concepts. So did Jefferson. So did Blackstone. So did Thomas Paine. So did John Locke. So did Burke. So did Montesquieu. So did de Tocqueville.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
"Clinton who did actually win the election"
I didn't know Bill was running.
The people don't elect the president, the States do. There are only 538 votes cast for president, and Trump won most of those.
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.
In theory, the difference between a republic and a democracy is there is a framework which constrains which laws can be passed. Making you a democratic republic.
Given how often the US tramples over constitutional rights, I'd say the US stopped being a republic a long time ago.
When you have AGs who decide the constitution doesn't apply within 100 miles of a border, or any number of things (like actively working to remove rights from other people to appease religion), then you've given up all of your bullshit claims of being some noble republic.
America is a two party state in which one party pretty much implements the bigoted will of Christians. In that regard, you're on similar moral footing with the Taliban, you're just all too stupid to accept that fact.
Stop letting the religion of one group of people define the rights of another group of people and get back to us. As it is, there is FAR too much pandering to allow laws to be passed to enforce the will of a minority of people on the rest of the people.
God doesn't get a vote, and the assholes who think god has given them the authority to make the decisions can go fuck themselves.
Republic my ass.
The US isn't a democracy, nor has it ever been. It's why (for example) the people don't elect the President. The States do. Generally, they have a nonbinding poll to request input on how they allocate their votes, but are under no legal obligation to do so.
As for why the President can kill a trade deal, the States delegated authority to the federal government to manage international trade, and congress passed laws using their authority to manage international trade.
As is often the case, congress doesn't want to have to pass a law for every individual situation, so they pass a law granting authority to the executive branch.
It is the same reason there is literally a law saying the president can exclude any group of aliens he wants, or all aliens, for any reason benefiting US interests, for any length of time, or add any restrictions he wants. That law will ultimately stand up in court, along with the travel ban.
The president has a lot of executive power.
When you have some spare time, look up the definition of "democracy". Hint: it's not as restrictive as you think and includes the way that the USA is structured.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
Sometimes "republic" and "democracy" are just words...
Take the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, for example. It's not a republic and it's certainly not democratic.
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?
>American culture has been dumbening down young americans for so long
I suppose this proves your point.
"a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."
Ok.
The representatives serve the people. Senators serve their State (and originally weren't popularly elected). The President serves all States, and is elected by the States.
So, no, not a democracy. It's a representative government, to a degree, but it is not, and never was a democracy. With gerrymandering and lobbying, it's becoming even less of one with time.
Xilinx bitstreams are essential to the security features in the various family members,
It is the fact of the bitstream resistance to de-engineering which protects the IP streams licensed or internally created
As Xilinx sees it, releasing that information is counterproductive
North Korea is a democracy. It is even part of their official name. East-Germany used to be a democracy as well.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
That's true. Just like liberal and conservative are not objectively defined terms. A conservative Soviet leader from the 1980s was not identical to a conservative from the US. Ronald Reagan (a US conservative != to a conservative polituburo member).
Just look at the idiots who through the word fascist all over the place.
Nonetheless, there are clear, well-written, well defined differences between a republic and a democracy. A great introduction to this is Madison #10 (Federalist Papers).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Because security by obscurity has always been the best policy...
Nullius in verba
Yes.
I mean, if you're giving/selling someone a product, on some level they have all the blueprints to make it.
But bitstream security in FPGAs / program security in microcontrollers makes it significantly less likely someone makes a gate-for-gate copy of what you're doing a month after launch. Just by making cloning a little more difficult/inconvenient your market can be protected for a reasonable amount of time.
They had very narrow definitions of the terms. Just look at any modern dictionary, and you will understand that you are (and they were) wrong.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
The representatives serve the people. Senators serve their State (and originally weren't popularly elected). The President serves all States, and is elected by the States.
Who they serve or represent doesn't matter. They are all elected by the people. The president is elected by the people, even though it's indirect because of the electoral college. Therefore it's a democracy.
If the people elect a representatives which elect other representatives which finally elect the politicians, it's still a democracy.
So, no, not a democracy. It's a representative government, to a degree, but it is not, and never was a democracy.
It's what we call a representative democracy. Instead of a direct democracy.
With gerrymandering and lobbying, it's becoming even less of one with time.
That I agree.
The modern dictionary is correct? The modern dictionary gives the modern general consensus of what the words mean. When you hear people bring up the distinction between a Republic and a Democracy it's because we're rejecting the Counter-Enlightenment political theory; we are promoting an ideal of a limited government as opposed to the dictatorship of the democracy (um proletariat).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
and if you want evidence of this "dumbening" look no further than than the OP's comment!
No surprise to find some casual racism in the same post either. Ignorance and bigotry go hand in hand.
I take it you don't work in the semiconductor industry. A lot of companies I've worked for use Lattice for prototyping. And some open source fanatics have reverse engineered their iCE FPGA and can generate reasonable bitstreams for several models.The FPGA world is more than just Xilinx and Altera, I would say Lattice is a third major player that has more market share than all the other minor players combined. (roughly 6% vs 5%)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Neither the president nor the senators are directly elected by the people. The president is selected by the electoral college. Electors and senators are chosen in whatever manner each state chooses. States choose election today, mostly, but that's not always been so and the US is powerless to control it going forward.
It may seem a subtle distinction, but just because states choose representatives through elections does NOT mean that the US is a democracy, as it is the choice of the states and they can change it at any time. The US is a representative republic, the representatives are not (all) guaranteed to be chosen by direct election.
The modern dictionary is correct?
By definition, yes.
I would also say that the definition of democracy or republic didn't really change for centuries. The words existed even before English, going back to ancient Greece.
The modern dictionary gives the modern general consensus of what the words mean.
Language is about being understood by others. If you don't like it you are free to stay in your basement and not talk to anyone.
When you hear people bring up the distinction between a Republic and a Democracy it's because we're rejecting the Counter-Enlightenment political theory; we are promoting an ideal of a limited government as opposed to the dictatorship of the democracy (um proletariat).
There are better ways to achieve that. A good start would be to put a suggestion for a better government forward. Republic and democracies have nothing to do with government size, by the way.
Redefining words is not going to get you any closer to your objective.
Neither the president nor the senators are directly elected by the people.
Which isn't a criterion to be a democracy.
The president is selected by the electoral college. Electors and senators are chosen in whatever manner each state chooses. States choose election today, mostly, but that's not always been so and the US is powerless to control it going forward.
It may seem a subtle distinction, but just because states choose representatives through elections does NOT mean that the US is a democracy,
Yes it does means that, as long as states are democratic themselves.
as it is the choice of the states and they can change it at any time.
Which would require the consent of elected representatives of the people of the states.
The US is a representative republic, the representatives are not (all) guaranteed to be chosen by direct election.
The US is a (flawed) democracy AND a republic.
There is no such thing as guaranteed democracy. The people could always vote to switch to a dictatorship. Even if that would be against a constitution, that constitution can be changed to allow the change from a democracy to a dictatorship.
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.
This is about national security. There have been plenty of businesses that we prohibit CHina and Russia, amongst others that we prevent from buying. While it would be possible for a European, Canadaian, or Australian company to purchase this one, there are some that are NOT allowed to be bought by ANY nation, and others that can only be bought by Canada and/or England.
And oddly, CHina blocks nearly ALL buys of chinese companies from the west. Yet, I doubt that you object to that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The president did NOT step it. He is the one that has to sign off if DOD AND Secretary of State says that it should be blocked. And yes, BOTH DOD and SoS did back this action. Trump could not have done this unilaterally.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is a Democratic Republic in mostly the same fashion that our forefathers set this up.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Obviously, poster meant "a presidential election", not the last presidential elector election.
And states don't vote (and haven't since the Articles of Confederation) but individual electors, elected in each state, which is why they sometimes vote for someone who DIDN'T win their state despite practice and even state laws to the contrary.
Why or how can a head of state interrupt a single business transaction?
You forget that POTUS is not merely Head of State (like Bess II in the UK) but Head of Government (like a Prime Minister), as well.
And the USA has never been a democracy, but a republic. Democracy is like France during the Reign Of Terror, the tyranny of temporary majorities or even pluralities over minorities.
Didn't say it was a GOOD idea, just why they don't want to release the scrambling code.
Here's a word that has been appropriated : Liberal.
Liberalism is antithetical to socialism.
There are some that want to reclaim the name.
A democracy is not a republic. And the size of republic means the scope and reach of what the government can do. In other words if a government can do whatever it wants if the majority of the people will it then it is a democracy - not a republic,
If the government budget rises to meet an existential threat then the government is not "too big." It's just right.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Here's a word that has been appropriated : Liberal.
Liberalism is antithetical to socialism.
I agree, and outside the USA, the proper definition of the term remains.
The problem of the USA is that it leans so much to the right of the political spectrum (compared to other western democracies) that a "liberal" is now considered a leftist there.
A democracy is not a republic.
Again, you are wrong. Just look at any dictionary.
And the size of republic means the scope and reach of what the government can do. In other words if a government can do whatever it wants if the majority of the people will it then it is a democracy - not a republic,
Everything is wrong within that statement.
What you are talking about is to have strong legal (often constitutional) protection for the minorities. It can be achieved in republican forms or government (usa, germany, france) as well as constitutional monarchies (uk, sweden). All these countries also are democracies.
Non-democratic republic such as China are not known to protect rights of minorities. Non-democratic monarchies (Saudia Arabia) are often worse.