He may be spending his days in the Oval Office running the country, but President Trump just can't help himself when there's a business deal to be made. Trump announced on Truth Social that tech manufacturer Intel had agreed to "give" the United States a 10% ownership stake in the company.
As reported by The Hill:
Trump offered some details Friday on how the agreement came about after he initially called on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign earlier this month.
'I said, "Well that's right he should resign,"' Trump said. 'And he came in, he saw me, we talked for a while. I liked him a lot. I thought he was very good. I thought he was somewhat a victim, but, you know, nobody's a total victim, I guess."'
'And I said, "You know what? I think the United States should be given 10 percent of Intel." And he said, "I would consider that,"' the president continued. 'Intel has been left behind, as you know, compared to [Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang] and some of our friends.'
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the deal could pave the way for Intel to move its operations back to the United States.
'We cannot rely on Taiwan, which is 9,500 miles away from us and only 80 miles from China,' he told CNBC's 'Squawk Box.' 'So, you can't have 99 percent of leading-edge chips made in Taiwan. We want to make them here.'
'One of those pieces is it would be lovely to have Intel be capable of making a U.S. node or a U.S. transistor, driving that in America,' he added.
The deal is not without its detractors, however. Republican lawmakers like Thom Tillis and Rand Paul immediately criticized the move as being a step towards socialism:
This is definitely not your mom and dad's Republican Party.
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