The Pentagon is pushing for the passage of legislation aimed at boosting the US’ domestic semiconductor industry, telling lawmakers the components, which go into everything from vacuum cleaners to fighter jets, are needed for the war in Ukraine.
“The national security stakes for passing the Chips Act are high,” US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “Microelectronics are fundamental to virtually every current and legacy military system.”
Hicks said the production of Javelin and Stinger missiles — “systems desperately needed by those in Ukraine” — are hampered by persistent semiconductor manufacturing delays and that having access to on-shore manufactured chips would help the US deter its adversaries and better assist its partners and allies. A Javelin missile system has about 200 chips.
The US’ share of semiconductor manufacturing has fallen to 12 percent from 37 percent since 1990, and the country produces none of the most advanced chips, which are made largely in Taiwan.
The US Senate is considering a package of legislation that would funnel US$52 billion in grants and subsidies to US semiconductor manufacturers, as well as funding to 5G wireless networks. It would provide US$3 billion for research.
The bill contains a 25 percent tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing — the source of a projected US$79 billion revenue loss.
“This is a national security issue for us,” said US Senator Mark Kelly, a former fighter pilot and astronaut, following a recent briefing on Capitol Hill with Hicks, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “We need to get this bill done.”
“The next generation of technologies is bound up in our ability to make sure that we have a secure and resilient supply chain, and it means getting the kind of structures in place to get the most sophisticated kinds of chips to the United States,” Hicks said.
The US and the Philippines plan to announce new sites as soon as possible for an expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which gives the Western power access to military bases in the Southeast Asian country. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr last month granted the US access to four military bases, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 EDCA, amid China’s increasing assertiveness regarding the South China Sea and Taiwan. Speaking at the Basa Air Base in Manila, one of the existing EDCA sites, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the defense agreements between the two countries
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS: The US destroyer’s routine operations in the South China Sea would have ‘serious consequences,’ the defense ministry said China yesterday threatened “serious consequences” after the US Navy sailed a destroyer around the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea for the second day in a row, in a move Beijing claimed was a breach of its sovereignty and security. The warning came amid growing tensions between China and the US in the region, as Washington pushes back at Beijing’s growingly assertive posture in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway it claims virtually in its entirety. On Thursday, after the US sailed the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer near the Paracel Islands, China said its navy and
‘DUAL PURPOSE’: Upgrading the port is essential for the Solomon Islands’ economy and might not be military focused, but ‘it is not about bases, it is about access,’ an analyst said The Solomon Islands has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to a Chinese state company to upgrade an international port in Honiara in a project funded by the Asian Development Bank, a Solomon Islands official said yesterday. China Civil Engineering Construction Co (CCECC) was the only company to submit a bid in the competitive tender, Solomon Islands Ministry of Infrastructure Development official Mike Qaqara said. “This will be upgrading the old international port in Honiara and two domestic wharves in the provinces,” Qaqara said. Responding to concerns that the port could be deepened for Chinese naval access, he said there would be “no expansion.” The Solomon
Seven stories above a shop floor hawking cheap perfume and nylon underwear, Thailand’s “shopping mall gorilla” sits alone in a cage — her home for 30 years despite a reignited row over her captivity. Activists around the world have long campaigned for the primate to be moved from Pata Zoo, on top of a Bangkok mall, with singer Cher and actor Gillian Anderson adding their voices in 2020. However, the family who owns Bua Noi — whose name translates as “little lotus” — have resisted public and government pressure to relinquish the critically endangered animal. The gorilla has lived at Pata for more
RSS