Mike Sheppard

the threat of additional tariffs.

The president yesterday warned that the South Korea trade deal could be reworked to jack up the tariff rate on South Korean imports to 25%.

For now, we're not seeing anything affecting memory, but we'll be watching that closely because there is a lot of pressure from the administration for more investment by South Korean companies here in the U.S.

I have had, as the host of Hot Pursuit, a Bloomberg podcast about cars, the opportunity to drive a lot of your EVs from the Sierra EV to the Hummer EV to the Escalade IQ, and they're fantastic products.

Are you not deterred that Americans aren't buying more of these vehicles?

You know how capable they are.

You know how useful they are in daily life.

What needs to happen for more Americans to buy these EVs?

But what was interesting yesterday, Kara, is that we get two very different versions of this phone call between the leaders of the world's two largest economies.

The first version came from Beijing.

The official state news agency, Xinhua, put out its version of the conversation, presenting it really as one centered on the question of Taiwan.

And then a few hours later, we heard from President Donald Trump himself on Truth Social posting that they had had a great conversation about issues including soybeans and other matters, rare earths and other key topics that were dear to the U.S.

president.

But he made no mention of Taiwan there.

Now, while he did not bring it up, several hours later, he did call the new prime minister of Japan, Sanai Takeuchi, who had enraged Beijing with comments a few weeks ago, you'll remember, Caro, saying that Japan would consider leaping to Taiwan's defense in the event that China were to try to take it.

Now, all of this has huge implications for the supply chain of semiconductors, as you noted, especially Taiwan Semiconductor.

It's one of the world's

largest producers of AI chips, and they are moving some of their production, as we know, to the U.S.

They've pledged $165 billion in investment in plants here in the United States, but they would still retain a significant amount of their capacity on the island.

Therefore, any question of Taiwan really does bring up tech issues for us.