The Blackmailer-in-Chief Strikes Again

Yes, Donald Trump (aka, President Pompous) has just become the world’s highest ranking blackmailer. You might also want to add highest ranking socialist to the list. Intel has agreed to sell the US a 10 percent stake in the company. This follows what could only be considered threats to go after Intel CEO, Lip-Bu Tan.

Trump had previously called for Tan to resign, accusing the CEO of having "concerning" ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The president claimed that Tan "walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States." That sounds a lot like blackmail to me.

Then Trump made a statement one would likely only hear in a mafia movie. “I think it would be good having the United States as your partner.” Doesn’t that sound a lot like, “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” from the Godfather movie. It sounds a lot like Don has taken his first name a little too seriously.

Even Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, has gotten in on the blackmail concept. He has advocated the idea of the US buying large stakes in various chip-makers in exchange for access to CHIPS Act funding that was passed by the Biden administration. Even admitted socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders got behind the plan, noting that "if microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment." I agree, but that return should be in the form of repayment (as would happen in a loan), not in the form of a stake in the company (which is the very definition of socialism – state controlled businesses).

Trump supposedly likes the idea of approaching other chip-makers that he alleges fail to commit to increasing their investments in the US. It’s a “do as we tell you or else” mentality. He has no constitutional authority to tell businesses what they should or shouldn’t do. I also find it interesting that a weak-minded American company is cowering while TSMC, a Taiwan company, has not shown any inkling of being receptive to the idea of selling the US a stake in its chip business just to keep CHIPS funding. TSMC executives even suggested handing back their subsidies if the administration asks to become a stockholder. Just more proof that American businesses/people will never pass up a handout no matter the cost.

For the record, socialism is an “economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership,” as defined in Wikipedia. I have been of the opinion that America passed into a “socialist-country-in-theory” status many years ago. We are now seeing it happen first-hand.

We renamed the Gulf of Mexico, so I guess renaming the USA to the USSA can’t be too far behind.

Source used: The Guardian