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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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