If the trade war continues and escalates, which form our current perspective it looks like it will, the EU will not lose one of its greatest assets in that space.
The idea of Trump that the US is powerful enough to strong arm everyone to his will is mistaken, an alienated US without its allies will suffer, as will the rest of the world..
Territorial expansion is always popular with the masses before the shooting starts.
It is more nationalistic than political; in fact, many unpopular politicians start wars in order to get a sense of national unity and tamp down unrest at home.
is it because of nationalism?
> A strong majority of Americans, 66%, are opposed to U.S. territorial expansion accomplished “by invading other countries and territories,” according to a recent poll from More in Common.
> In contrast, just 13% support the U.S. launching an invasion to acquire territory, and 16% were not sure
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...
So we will have a cold war, trade war and saber rattling until that time.
Then when the chips don't matter someday Taiwan will become old news to western minds like Iraq is today. When China takes Taiwan it will barely be a western news story because right now will feel so long in the past.
This so called arms race is only in western minds. It would be stupid to not think about this possibility and its consequences of course but this is the most illogical option by China.
The best option would be to advance their own semiconductor tech beyond TSMC and make it irrelevant, which so far is the course of action they are taking (alas only because they are forced by US).
Expanding on why capturing Taiwan is stupid: TSMC already has fabs and people with knowhow outside Taiwan. The fab assets are not as strategicly valuable as their knowhow. Plus, even if you acquire the knowhow, there's the supply chain: ASML, others, ASML's supply chain.
I think US might force ASML and TSMC to move to US in the coming years even stronger but more than that this arms race isn't getting hot.