THE FIRST SEMICONDUCTOR TRADE WAR
FACED WITH THE prospect of an Asian nation overtaking the United States as the world’s preeminent manufacturer of vital technology, the president struck a nationalist pose. “The health and vitality of the U.S. semiconductor industry are essential to America’s future competitiveness,” he said, announcing huge new tariffs and setting the stage for subsidies to domestic microchip makers. “We cannot allow it to be jeopardized by unfair trading practices.”
This was not President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump taking a stand against China. It was President Ronald Reagan responding to the growing technological prowess of Japan in 1987.
A year earlier, the Reagan administration had reached a deal that was supposed to limit Japanese companies’
