In today’s dispatch:
TAIWAN. CHINA. An America-first shock to Taipei.
UNITED STATES. A Senate revolt could deliver Biden a fatal blow.
GERMANY. Berlin’s draft budget has bad news for Kyiv.
BRITAIN. IRELAND. Keir Starmer marks a reset with Dublin.
BANGLADESH. Student protests threaten to shut down the capital.
Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily intelligence and risk briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, an advisory firm specialising exclusively in geopolitical risk.
TAIWAN. CHINA. Cashing in the chips
An America-first shock to Taipei.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp beat profit estimates Thursday, but its Tapei-listed shares continued New York's rout after Donald Trump said Wednesday Taiwan had stolen US technology and needed to pay for its defence. .
INTELLIGENCE. Trump has said the quiet part out loud. Arming Taiwan is expensive (geopolitically and financially) and while US firms dominate the design and consumer ends of the semiconductor supply chain, they’re missing the manufacturing in the middle. Reshoring to the US isn’t easy (and TSMC has tried), but statements like these could force a harder pivot. Taipei’s security is tied to its technological centrality. This is similarly true for Tokyo and Seoul.
FOR BUSINESS. TSMC’s market volatility expresses the tension between today’s biggest trends: artificial intelligence and geopolitical fracturing. AI has turbocharged the tech sector’s fortunes, but geopolitics could undo it. The forces aren’t mutually exclusive. Today’s geopolitical contest isn’t for territory, but technological dominance (as it was, to an extent, in the Cold War). With tech stock values still at nosebleed levels, investors may consider hedging their bets.
UNITED STATES. Et tu, Chuck?
A Senate revolt could deliver Biden a final blow.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sidestepped reports he had urged Joe Biden to quit, following more party seniors, including Adam Schiff, calling on the president to step aside. Biden cancelled a Las Vegas speech due to Covid.
INTELLIGENCE. The structural impediments to Biden leaving remain, and he’ll be loath to quit as Trump basks in his own near-death experience, but