Will Trump's Chip Tariffs Do What He Thinks They Will? - Tech News Briefing

Wall Street Journal

2 days ago

President Trump has proposed sweeping tariffs on chips , while offering an exemption: companies that invest in manufacturing in the U.S. won't have to pay. It's an attempt to incentivize more chip production in the U.S., but WSJ Heard on the Street writer Asa Fitch notes that key chip-making companies already have invested in U.S. factories. Plus, Disney is in a difficult bind when it comes to AI. The WSJ's Jessica Toonkel takes us inside the company's thinking. Peter Champelli hosts.
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Peter Champelli: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Tuesday, August 12th. I'm Peter Champelli for the Wall Street Journal. Like pretty much every company, Disney is trying to figure out how it can use generative AI, but it's facing pushback both from in and outside the company. We'll hear more about what Disney's been up to, including an attempt to make an AI double of Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Then, Trump is threatening huge tariffs to try and incentivize companies to make chips in the US and to get other companies to buy US-made chips. But our Heard on the Street writer thinks the result of those tariffs could be much different and potentially have the opposite effect. But first, in its efforts to navigate artificial intelligence, Disney is in a bind. It's been dancing with ways to incorporate generative AI, including an interactive Darth Vader chatbot that players could talk to in Fortnite. But some in the company worry about pushback from fans and potential legal complications. The Wall Street Journal's Belle Lin spoke with deputy media editor Jessica Toonkel about it.
Belle Lin: Jessica, there's a great anecdote in your story about the star Dwayne Johnson and Disney's scrapped plan to use a deepfake of his face for the live-action version of the hit movie Moana. What exactly does this anecdote illustrate about the challenges that face Disney in Hollywood when it comes to AI?
Jessica Toonkel: We love this story because you have The Rock who gave his permission actually for this to be done. The idea was Dwayne Johnson would not have to be at every shot. He wouldn't have to be there on set all the time. His cousin, who has his six-foot-three, 250-pound stature was going to be his fake double, basically, they were going to use his body and put Dwayne Johnson's face on it, had also given his permission. So they had all the permissions and everything and the technology to do this deepfake. Yet they could not get comfortable with all the questions around what could it mean if we use this tool?
Belle Lin: Why is it so complex for Disney to be more bold in how it uses AI for its creative endeavors?
Jessica Toonkel: This is such a fraught subject in Hollywood. It was not that long ago that actors and writers were on strike saying, "You cannot replace us with AI," and the actor's contract is coming up again. So you have the fear of upsetting talent. You have the fear of fans saying, "Hey, this isn't real." And there's the fear of who owns the copyright and who owns these characters that are created by AI. If we work with an AI company to do something, will we still own every piece of that? And Disney can't afford to let go of any of that. We spoke to the general counsel at Disney who was very clear like, we want to make sure Disney owns Darth Vader.
Belle Lin: What are some early steps that Disney has taken in using AI inside its shows, movies or games?
Jessica Toonkel: So we've seen bits and pieces. Disney has a joint venture with Epic Games, the owner of Fortnite, and they created an AI-generated Darth Vader in the game. And within minutes, the gamers figured out a way to get the generated AI Darth Vader to curse at them. They had to fix that. And they did fix it within 30 minutes, and they did feel like even with that happening, it was a success. Just the fact that Disney did that is a huge step from where they were even five years ago.
Belle Lin: How would you describe the dynamic inside Disney when it comes to using AI, albeit it's certainly very complicated?
Jessica Toonkel: Disney, they understand that this is something they need to do and they want to do it the right way. So they have their team, they've created an AI group, they've done all those things. It's just that this is a company that has been historically probably the most protective of its characters in IP than any company.
Belle Lin: Where do you think that this all ends up? Where do you think that Disney comes to a conclusion on what the use of AI is amongst its creative endeavors?
Jessica Toonkel: I don't think Disney has to be a first mover on being the first one to use some AI tool for a specific purpose. They're going to continue to be cautious, but they're going to continue to experiment with things because they realize that they have to at least know what the game is. And next year, Disney is going to be naming its new CEO, and it will be really interesting to see who they pick if that person has been involved in these discussions because it will tell us how Disney is thinking about how important AI is for its future.
Peter Champelli: That was Wall Street Journal deputy media editor Jessica Toonkel. Coming up, we'll dive deep into Trump's proposed tariffs on chips from overseas and why the exemptions would probably spare the biggest players. That's after the break. Trump has proposed a nearly 100% tariff on chips and semiconductors being imported from overseas, but he's allowing an exemption. Companies that build or plan to build in the US won't have to pay. It's an attempt to incentivize US companies to buy chips from US makers and to get the companies that are making the chips to build factories in the US. But our Heard on the Street writer Asa Fitch says that these tariffs won't result in more US chip production. Asa, in your reporting, you mentioned that advanced chip making is a game only few can play. What are the companies most threatened by these tariffs and what would the immediate effects be?
Asa Fitch: So the largest chip makers in the world are effectively Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC and Samsung Electronics and Intel, the US-based chip maker. Those companies will be affected in different ways by these tariffs if they go into place. Now, Trump wants to put in place, he said, a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors. It's a very complex supply chain. Things move around all over the place all the time. So it's hard to come to a very certain answer about what that impact will be. One thing it doesn't seem like these tariffs will do though is seriously incentivize chip production in the US, advanced chip production in the US, at least, in the way that Trump talked about them last week.
Peter Champelli: So why isn't that the case? And could there be any unintentional consequences of the tariffs?
Asa Fitch: The main reason why that's the case is that when Trump laid out this 100% chip tariff plan last week, he said that there would be exemptions for companies that invest a lot of money in the US. Now, all the large chip makers have already invested tons of money in the US so they've already passed that bar, and that means that they likely, based on the language that Trump used, will get exemptions. So there's no further incentive for these chip companies to build upon their existing manufacturing operations in US based on these tariffs because the tariffs are gone. So if anything, these companies are sort of more incentivized to import stuff tariff-free from other parts of the world where it's cheaper to produce chips than to make them here in the US. So there's a little bit of a mismatch of the stated intent of these tariffs and the actual fact of them, at least as they appear so far, to have been outlined. And granted, that is kind of vague.
Peter Champelli: So the target of these tariffs are US companies buying foreign-made chips. But on the flip side, earlier this week, the news broke that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are going to give the Trump administration a 15% cut of their AI chip sales to China. How does this news factor into Trump's goal with the tariffs?
Asa Fitch: That is really hard to tell. You could infer that the 15% surcharge on these companies' revenues in China means the Trump administration is trying to make it more expensive to sell this stuff, obviously. And that means that that's going to affect demand in the typical sort of supply-demand way. If you have higher prices, people will buy less of that stuff in general. It's not entirely clear that's going to happen in this case because if China or Chinese companies or Chinese government sees these chips as essential to their broader AI strategy and the key to unlocking AI for China, there's no way they're not going to pay a higher price. So the impact could be pretty limited. There've been some analysts who estimated the impact on Nvidia of this additional fee, something around maybe $3 billion a year. That sounds like a lot of money, but Nvidia is projected to make $200 billion plus in its current fiscal year. So $3 billion is maybe not a ton for that particular company. These are two different things, obviously. The tariffs are meant to incentivize manufacture in the US. These charges on sale to China are meant to disrupt in some way or limit the sales of AI chips in China. But there's two sides of the coin, if you will, or two different kind of objectives within the same envelope of national security, protecting US interests, growing US industry, things like that.
Peter Champelli: And with Trump's proposed tariffs on the importing of chips and semiconductors, what would the longer term effects of those be on companies and on consumers?
Asa Fitch: It's hard to say right now. We don't know what exact shape the tariffs are going to take. One thing that's clear, obviously, is that when you raise prices of goods, they tend to trickle down to consumers and to businesses who are buying those goods. So that could be the impact, but the magnitude of that is impossible to gauge without knowing exactly what shape these will take. And we've talked about the exceptions. Some of these companies like Apple qualify for exceptions so that the chips inside those iPhones aren't going to be charged a tariff. So it all depends on effectively the implementation. It's really uncertain right now.
Peter Champelli: That was Wall Street Journal Heard on the Street reporter, Asa Fitch. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with deputy editor Chris Zinsli. I'm Peter Champelli for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.