September 28, 2023
The Case for an Alliance of Semiconductor Producing Nations
Coordinating with allies and partners is a critical pillar of the United States’ semiconductor strategy. To date, the United States has engaged with allies and partners through a constellation of bilateral and plurilateral coalitions, including Chip 4, the Quad, the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, among others. While a piecemeal approach works for some technologies, this approach does not work for technologies with a global supply chain, such as semiconductors. The United States needs to reboot its strategy and form an alliance of semiconductor-producing nations to foster geographic diversification of the necessary supply chains.
Revising the United States’ current approach is imperative given the global nature of the semiconductor supply chain.
The United States’ current two-pronged approach suffers from the Goldilocks problem. On one hand, the existing bilateral and plurilateral coalitions have too few countries in the room and lack visibility into segments of the value chain and the activities of key semiconductor producing nations. On the other hand, current multilateral dialogues have too many countries with a seat at the table. Broad-based initiatives – such as through the OSCE and WTO – make consensus impossible, as different stakeholders have different goals. The United States needs to strike a balance and find the middle ground in its approach, and an alliance of semiconductor-producing nations would do just that.
Read the full article from The Diplomat.
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