Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill Meant to Counter China

Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill Meant to Counter China

The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 passed in a vote of 63-33, with 17 Republicans voting in favor. The over 1,000-page legislation includes $52.7 billion for direct funding for the construction and expansion of semiconductor manufacturing and $24 billion for tax incentives and other purposes.

The bill will authorize roughly $200 billion in science and technology research funding that will be spread across several government agencies over the next five years. The largest recipient of the research funds will be the National Science Foundation, which will receive $81 billion.

Related:

CHIPS Won’t Help China

Third, the CHIPS Act actually has provisions designed specifically to restrict investments in China. These so-called “guardrails” require that companies taking federal dollars for American projects must also agree not to invest in state-of-the-art technology in China—not just with the federal dollars, with any dollars. Good-faith critics have raised fair concerns that these guardrails should be broader, tougher, and firmer. But any guardrails at all represent unprecedented restrictions on what U.S. companies can do in the People’s Republic. It’s one thing to say an ideal bill would hurt China even more; it’s quite another to try and claim that less-than-perfect restrictions count as “help.”

Pelosi’s Husband Dumped Up to $5M of Tech Stock Right Before Senate Passed CHIPS

Pelosi’s Husband Dumped Up to $5M of Tech Stock Right Before Senate Passed CHIPS

Just before the Senate passed a major bill to subsidize computer chip manufacturers on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) husband sold thousands of shares of Nvidia — a tech company that could stand to gain from the passage of the nearly $80 billion bill.

Pelosi’s Husband Dumped Up to $5M of Tech Stock Right Before Senate Passed CHIPS

Related:

Nancy Pelosi And Husband Sell NVIDIA Corp Stock After Public Pressure

“I think this comes in response to public pressure and the conflict of interest her stock position posed,” the founder of Congresstrading.com, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of his site, told Benzinga.

“It is surprising to see the sale. Also, what’s surprising here is that she sold and reported one day later. Usually she takes a couple of weeks. She wanted the public to know she cleared her books of this conflict of interest immediately.”

Congresstrading also noted Pelosi’s filings typically come on Fridays, when the media may potentially bury the story over the weekend.

The Nancy Pelosi Tracker on Twitter, which shares transactions by the Speaker of the House, noted the transaction history of NVIDIA Corporation by the Pelosis dates back to May 2021. According to the account, the Pelosis still own 50 options on NVIDIA Corporation with a strike price of $100 and expiration of Sep. 16, 2022 that were purchased back on July 23, 2021.

Pelosi remains one of the most active filers of stock transactions in Congress due to her husband being a venture capitalist.

Nancy Pelosi’s husband buys millions worth of Nvidia stock ahead of chip-manufacturing bill vote + Newly sworn-in SEC commissioner is former Pelosi aide

Nancy Pelosi’s husband buys millions worth of Nvidia stock ahead of chip-manufacturing bill vote

It’s worth noting that Nvidia designs their owns chips, but hires other companies to manufacture them and likely would not directly receive benefits from subsidies related to this congressional bill.

Related:

Newly sworn-in SEC commissioner is former Pelosi aide

Chips and Dip: Congressional Trading in the Semiconductor Industry since 2020

The whale had to separate Speak Pelosi and Rep. Kim Schrier’s huge AAPL sell offs, as they make their House colleagues’ trades look like peanuts.

MoA: This New Import Law Will Hurt U.S. Consumers

This New Import Law Will Hurt U.S. Consumers

For small importers it will be impossible to do the above. Only big companies [Congress’ gift to Big Corporations] can afford to research and provide all that data and to take the risk of importing products that may get confiscated at the border. They will of course ask their customers to pay for all that.

Previously:

US Crackdown on Forced Labor in China Risks Further Supply Chaos

MoA brings up some things that I hadn’t.

The Ouster Of Imran Khan: How Much Involvement Did the US Have in Pakistan’s Coup?

The Ouster Of Imran Khan: How Much Involvement Did the US Have in Pakista’s Coup?

On a regional level, the Khan administration has also taken steps that have angered the world’s sole superpower. Khan has attempted to increase close bilateral collaboration to improve trade and transport links with Iran, describing their 517-mile border as a frontier of “peace and friendship” and expressing his happiness at the “positive momentum in brotherly relations between the two countries.” In 2019, he also tried to broker peace negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, an agreement that could have brought considerably more peace to the Middle East. The Trump administration vehemently opposed these negotiations, scuppering them weeks later by assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

While he has supported Iran, he has also publically opposed many of the policies of key U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. Khan successfully campaigned against Pakistani involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, while he has consistently championed Palestinian rights and demanded the Muslim world do more to help them. “A day will come when Palestinians will get their own country, a just settlement, and they will be able to live as equal citizens,” he said last year, comparing their struggle to that of the worldwide campaign against Apartheid South Africa. Meanwhile, he has also publicly supported imprisoned publisher Julian Assange.

The Pakistani military is thought to possess around 165 nuclear warheads. The country’s nuclear status came into sharp relief just as the campaign to oust Khan was heating up. While the world was concentrating on Ukraine, a potentially far more deadly incident occurred when India mistakenly fired a BrahMos cruise missile – the sort it uses to deliver its nuclear warheads – into Pakistan. In the course of routine maintenance, the rocket was accidentally launched. India did not immediately inform its neighbor of its mistake.