You seek the key, but first, you must learn the ways of precision, craft, and performance with Acura's all-electric ZDX, with a premium bang and all-of-son sound system, up to a 313-mile range, and a Type S variant with an estimated 500 horsepower, the ZDX is their most powerful SUV yet. Unlock the energy when you visit Acura.com to order yours today. It's Jim Kramer here. You're listening to the opening bell on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action. Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Keaton. I'm Jim Kramer, David Faber, and post-9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Futures are steady despite some rising treasury yields at year to date highs. A busy week in focus with CPI, Q1 earnings season begins, Yellen and China, and of course, a total eclipse of the sun. Our roadmap begins with America's chips play. Taiwan said we're getting a multi-billion dollar investment from Uncle Sam to build one of the world's most advanced chips plants in Arizona. Plus, the structure of Secretary Yellen is not ruling out the possibility of new tariffs on China. Our Sarah Isan wraps up for exclusive interview. Well, trade and investment between our two countries is beneficial and desirable. It needs to be on a level playing field, and in a number of ways we feel it's not. And Jamie Diamond's warning for investors' higher rates, stick-ear inflation, and the profound implications of AI. We begin with news surrounding a major supplier to NVIDIA and Apple. Taiwan's Sammy's up in the pre-market. The White House announcing $6.6 billion in grants for the company's Arizona plants. This is all under the CHPS Act. Under the agreement, TSM is committed to adding a third chip factory to the complex. It started building in 2021. Commerce Secretary Romondo will join us later on this hour. Jim, we're talking some 20,000 construction jobs. There's money in here for workforce training. This is the big one, because it's two, Nana. It's the ones that we really need. It's the ones that we can't build. They're too expensive. I don't know. We'll have to talk about how much money they really need. We don't have enough engineers to believe to build these. This is exactly what Taiwan's semi-accelerate in Taiwan. David, you know that this is the most tenuous, and we'll talk with Sarah about it, the most tenuous situation we have, which is that we could lose access to the tuna animator if China moves on Taiwan. We could. That's the big threat. We have to do this. It's certainly an important component of our concern, if that were to occur. Supply chain and supply chain. We've said so many times when it comes to high-end ships, TSMC is the de facto place you go, period. Intel would hope otherwise at some point long in the future. By the way, I did hear your comments about Intel with Carl on Friday. I believe that was when I was inherently mad, Dash. We're going to ask for a moment about Intel, because I think the comments that I made were really existential by Intel. But as for TSMC and the 6.6 billion to your point, it's going to require an enormous amount of investment from that company. Now, when they get to two nanometer in this plant in Arizona, if and when they do, it may not still be the, it may not be at the very forefront of the technology things may have moved beyond that. How about that? Yes, it's true. But that point, it may be obvious, but the fact is right now, this is pretty good. This is what you could, I mean, Nvidia could use this. Right, right. You know, Carl, one of the problems we have over and over again is, why did we go to Taiwan? Well, because we didn't have the engineers, and it was too much too expensive to build, and we did not have a sense that maybe the US would be left adrift. It was much more private capital, and a company like an AMD decided, you know what, we need to go, we need to go Foundry Light. Let's get rid of Global Foundry, just go Foundry Light, let's go there. And it made a lot of sense. And if they believe me, if this country weren't located within the zone of what China thinks is theirs, we wouldn't be doing this. Like, if this were in Mexico, which is another cheap labor force, we wouldn't have to do this. I think it's important to point out that Taiwan gave plenty of subsidies as well, to TSMC through the years. Yes, but I'm just saying that there was plenty of state support there for that company. Oh, always, but we wish that it weren't in Taiwan. We'd better understand that, but I mean, when we see Sarah with Secretary Yellen and we talk about a level playing field, you know, it is, it's important to note that they were offered great support. It's one reason why... Maybe we should go to share. Maybe we should go to share it, and ask. We can't, but I just think that's also part of the story. I mean, you could just answer this story about IPAs. I mean, why it became such a powerful force in chip making. Well, because Morris Chang at 55 decided to go there and say, listen, we're done with making him in expensive places. Right. But also, and I need your help. And they stepped up. They sure did, but they held some core level of engineers that we don't have. We don't even have it. It's very hard to get an engineering degree in this country. Most of this colleges don't have one. We decided, you know, a long time ago that engineering was, let's leave that to someone else. Really? Yes. I'd like to see the numbers on that. My wife's on the board of Bucknell. They have an engineering school. Do you have any universities we have in this country? It's like one of the key dividers with every other country in the world. The best education system by far. I'm talking about the engineering degree, not a BA, but yeah, a lot of people read Moby Dick. Okay. I understand that we graduate. I understand China graduates more engineers than we do. They can read. They also have a lot more people. Engineers per island, for people, far more than we have. Yeah, we do import a lot of our engineering expertise. The CEOs of Google and Microsoft, just to name a couple, can we test it out of that? I mean, Jensen has 20,000 engineers. That's very helpful too, immigration. Yes. Well, why don't you just touch the hot button? When you ask the people like, like, we tried to get a little brainer. They're not going to talk about it. I mean, what we want to do is the number. How many, what's the work permit number that we're giving? I have no idea. Because that's the key to inflation. I think. Yeah. CPI this week. Yes, we get CPI this week, Jim. That's right. Well, you can repeat what I say. Well, I will repeat what you say. Let's see if it works. I let some times I wonder what, if you know what you say, so I like to repeat. Why don't you go to Nova Scotia and watch your totals because of the some you sent me there? No, big day for Bonnie Tyler. Jim and David mentioned the Treasury Secretary in China, wrapping up six days. Our Sarah Eisen spoke with her exclusively and joined us live from Beijing this morning. Hey, Sarah. Hi, Carl, Jim and David. Good to see all of you here from Beijing, where I follow the Treasury Secretary all around the city this weekend. She met with Premier Li, the number two leader here. She met with the mayor of Beijing. She met with students at Peking University. And you guys are talking about subsidies. This issue was certainly front and center in her criticism. She did a little bit of a diplomatic dance between strengthening communication around the economy and also criticizing China's heavy manufacturing subsidies for these industries like they did with steel a few years ago. And now she's talking about solar panels and lithium ion batteries and electric vehicles. So I asked her in this interview, what's next? If they don't do anything, are we going to put tariffs more tariffs on these products? Here's what she said. We need to keep everything on the table. We want to work with the Chinese to see if we can find a solution. We are engaging in a four-year review of section 301 tariffs. That's not complete, so I can't really speak to what will come of it. I wouldn't rule anything out, but I think we need to deal with this issue. What she really wants to see is then redirecting their money and instead of subsidies towards these vehicles and towards these solar panels and into the consumption and sort of change the economic model there. Let's talk about EVs because, guys, I've been here for a few days and I've seen a lot of EVs, about a third of cars sold in China are EVs. And when you go to the malls, you see all these fancy beautiful showrooms of electric vehicles. And we talk a lot about BYD, which did out-produced Tesla in Q4 and Neo, but also you have these auto manufacturers that are teaming up with the tech companies here and releasing new cars. I'm talking about a Huawei partnership, for instance, on a new car. And I even got in, in one of these showrooms, there's a new car by Gili and Baidu. It's a self-driving car, so the guy at the showroom told the car to open the door. I got in, there's a driver there, although it is apparently self-driving. They're beautiful cars and they're attracting a lot of attention. They're situated inside these malls, which are all basically just Western brands, Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, Gap, and then Chinese EVs, which I think is a big part of the story. And we've been telling this story for a long time, but the focus for treasury, guys, is really on the exports, which have gone up 1500% in the last three years, Chinese EV exports. And that is the concern. That's going to put pressure on prices and it's going to kill our auto industry. And that's why Yellen is really sounding the alarm. We've talked about the increase in quality, obviously, of these automobiles significantly. It's interesting you mentioned full self-driving or almost full self-driving. I want to find out a bit more about that, Sarah. But when I hear the treasury secretary talk about a level playing field, it would seem to me so difficult. How do you define exactly what that is? What really represents a level playing field? How do you deal with the subsidies that have come for so long from the Chinese government or for state-owned enterprises and on from there and/or so many other things that impact it? Can they ever really get to an equal definition, I guess? Well, I think what she's talking about here, when she's criticizing the subsidies and the level playing field, is being more of a consumption led economy and not a supply driven economy, where in order to stimulate their manufacturing in a weak economy, which their economy is weak by historical standards right now, they're putting all this money into manufacturing. And now they're manufacturing, their surplus is now at 2% or so of world GDP. It's higher than any other country. And so instead of shifting all that money into there, putting it into the consumer economy and refocusing their macroeconomic policy, that's really what she was here to tell them to do. And that's how she was defining the level playing field. So that we could, we can stimulate competition in places like EVs, and in solar panels, because right now it's harder to do, especially with China flooding these markets, Europe in particular with some of these products. It just makes it hard for the US compete to compete. We've heard Elon Musk talking about it and now the secretary is talking about it and it's really about shifting the model and where they're going to put all their money and stimulate growth, which they do need right now. All right, Sarah. So I watched a lot of reviews. It was fantastic and riveting on Frank Holland's show. And I think that the secretary did make a point of distinguishing Europe where there's a lot of cross trade and they buy a lot of German cars and us. I wanted to know whether you got into the idea of the Mexican Trojan horse that Philip Bo and I talk about, which is that you can make the Evobo in Mexico with just enough US content that they could get here and it would not be subject to the tariff. And we might be a little naive as a country about what they're doing in Mexico. Did she address that at all? She didn't specifically address the fact that they can build factories in Mexico and then ship them over and avoid the high tariffs. But what she did mention, I asked her, should Chinese EVs be allowed to be sold in the US market? And she said they are allowed to be sold in the market. Yes, we have tariffs on them, which makes it a little bit hard, but she said we are open to having Chinese imports in the US market. It was really careful to say that including EVs. I think the problem that they have is just the fact that they are producing so much of the EVs in the solar panels on a global stage that it's much more supply than meets demand and that's the problem that she has. But I would say, Jim, in that instance and in a number of other instances, she was very, very open toward trade. She did not criticize Europe's and China's close trade ties. Even when I asked her, should Tim Cook of Apple be reducing his manufacturing footprint in China? She said, no, we're not here to discourage investment. We're not here to discourage the closer economic ties. We're here to encourage that in a fair way, where it doesn't interfere with national security or it doesn't interfere with the unfair trade practices that she was talking about. Well, let's talk about that. Because I thought it was great to cherish from Red Apple, and I also thought it was great that she was pro the notion of still investing. But look, if they want to do trade with us, I think they want to start with Blackwell, they want to start with the Grace Hopper, they want Jensen, they want NVIDIA. That's the thing you really need more than anything else in the world. Did she say anything about the idea that we own chips and we're not playing fair with them because we think they're cheaters? Yeah, over the course of the weekend, no question about it. The chips were in focus, more on the Chinese side of retaliation when it comes to limiting US chips and what can be sold in the US, for instance, on Micron. She mentioned at one point, but I think it's a good example of some of the pushback, actually, Jim, that we've been monitoring here on the ground and in social media and in the newspapers and the commentary is on this whole over-capacity issue and trade practices. They say it's just an attempt for the US people here, say it's an attempt for the US to limit competition and to limit China's growth of dominant industries and to squash things like TikTok in the United States or other electric vehicles. It has been interesting on the ground to hear the different sides of the story and really try to understand the Chinese side because the readout from the Chinese state media is completely different and they don't even recognize the over-capacity issue. Great, great look, Sarah, especially about what kind of local press coverage the secretary is getting. We'll check in with you a lot today, Sarah Eisen in Beijing. When we come back, Jamie Diamond's message on interest rates in AI as his shareholder letter is out, got some news on the airlines, Boeing, Spirit, UAL, some M&A and REITs, a lot of reaction to Tesla, and other calls on AMAT, Ulta, PVH and Amazon. We return. One in eight, that's how many people have worked out at McDonald's, who served millions the best Big Mac and best birthday party they've ever had. We haven't just seen kids graduate from a Happy Meal, but have gotten help graduating themselves because they know the skills learned here. The amineedos, welcome to English Under the Arches, can help you grow from here or keep growing here. One in eight, start at McDonald's and where you start stays with you. Hello, I'm Lara Castleton, U.S. Head of Portfolio Construction and Strategy at Janice Henderson Investors. Is a brighter future possible? At Janice Henderson, we think it is. For 90 years, we've worked to help clients achieve superior financial outcomes and fulfill our purpose of investing in a brighter future together. We know that this means our thinking and our investments are helping to shape millions of brighter futures for the next 90 years and beyond. To learn more, go to Janice Henderson.com. Mark has come in off the worst week for the S&P. In about three months, this amid investor concerns. The Fed might scale back plans for interest rate cuts and wake of the stronger eco data we've gotten lately. He's also got Jamie Diamond with his annual letter to JPM shareholders, says we could see rates hit 8% in the coming years. He cites inflation, record high deficit spending, geopolitics, Jim, talks about bank regs and DEI and AI and a lot more. He's very cringe-like this year. I think he's a little more negative than usual. He's talking about guns and butters in the 70s and 80s, which is really the 60s. What I see here is that he basically says, "Look, we could be in with a budget deficit a very, very hard time." David, when you hear 8%, you realize he used to say 6%, he now says he could go up to 8%. What you say is he's very concerned about the long-term and how much our rates are going to go higher. Yeah, the market side, not the Fed. No understood. He's been cautious for quite some time. Yes. We can remember when we call him Hurricane Jamie downgraded to a topical storm. I guess you like that for somebody who runs the largest bank in the country. You want them to be ready for us. It's very particularly tough times if that's, in fact, what's going to happen. But I was more taken in some ways with his comments on AI. I'm just going to say as much as his continued belief that we could see a spike in rates at some point. Talk to you about AI. We don't know the full effect or precise rate at which it will change, but we are completely convinced the consequences will be extraordinary. It goes on to say possibly as transformational as some of the major conventions, such as printing press, steam engine, you take it from there. You get the point, obviously, talking as well about how over time their use of AI at JP Morgan has the potential to augment virtually every job, as well as impact their workforce, not necessarily replace people, but changes the way they do their job. They spent a lot of time with Jensen when he came here. David, I thought you'd be very interested in those comments about the ready, these agencies that make decisions when it comes to proxy fights and how he doesn't like them. Things that they may not be as good, may not be as relevant. What do you think of that? Well, that's been a criticism for a very long period of time. But I think that judging by what you saw last week, ISS can come out in favor of pelts and maybe it shouldn't matter. Well, in that case, it didn't really have that large an impact. That said, of course, Jamie Diamond, which I cannot remember him ever having done, took sides as well in that proxy fight in support of Bob Iger. They do banking work. They do banking work. They do. But you know, more to diamond, I don't know, what do you make of 8% the possibility for 8% rates? I just don't think so. I think that they would be self-regulating. We would have an economy that would get hurt very badly at six, seven and come back down. You know, Carl, one thing is when you listen to what's coming out of Congress, you're not hearing anything that is reassuring, but that's kind of not on the radar screen. And he says, this is from front and center. I agree with that. Congress is back to work. We're going to see what kind of Ukraine funding Johnson may put on the floor, maybe in return for some LNG approval restarts. We get rid of that 2028 pause because that really did kill a lot of major projects because if you're going to do an LNG big, you didn't do a gigantic facility. Well, you got to start now for 2030. So he killed projects right now. I don't know if he knew that, Carl. I don't know if they knew the sensitivity to this. They seem to be, unlike saying semiconductors, it may not be as knowledgeable about a blow up budget. Right. We're going to talk some energy. Oil is lower today as Netanyahu does pull some troops out of Gaza. We'll talk about the weekend gym, blessedly event, free in terms of what we're worried about in front of them. We'll get Kramer's mad dash countdown to the opening bell. One more look here at the pre market as we kick off a big week between the inflation data and earnings and a lot more. Don't go anywhere. Also, the Commerce Secretary on the billions in chips that are getting granted to Taiwan semi in a moment. For more than a decade, Comcast has been committed to bridging the digital divide and connecting millions to affordable high speed internet, but the barriers to get connected go well beyond affordability. Through project up, Comcast is committing $1 billion to reach millions with digital skills training, resources and opportunities needed to succeed in a digital world project up building a future of unlimited possibilities. Learn more at comcast.com/projectup All right, let's get to it. A mad dash to start this week. We've got a little bit of time because we've got that opening bell coming. I have not been all that optimistic about Google's prospects versus Microsoft versus Amazon, but I think this is important. Tomorrow Thomas Curran, who's really a hitter, will give his keynote at the cloud next conference in Vegas. This is the Google cloud next conference and it's going to show off that Google is not being left behind, not be troubled by search. This is the moment when the cloud is growing in both financial and seven in importance, and I have the million that it's going to move the stock heart. The stock has already recovered from all of those existential concerns about their monopoly in search that lasts about three weeks. I know that right and that people are back recommended. I think we're opening bell here in the 70s for real time exchange and the big board. It is done and you know we're celebrating it's 20 years of real beauty campaign at the Nasdaq Regional Bank Southern California Bank Corp and come Friday, Jim. We're talking about the bank's a lot. Yeah, I mean, this is it and we've got, then we'll get back here each season. I think that we have a lot of policy that's talking about the fact that analysts keep raising numbers. Some of the banks do quite well in a higher pool. The reason why we all are well-stormed up to the trust, beyond the fact that we think the Charlie Short is an unbelievable banker, is that they do better in a longer higher situation. So keep in mind that banks are better than you think at this stage of the cycle. Speaking of wells, Chris Harvey over at Wells today, ups his year-end target, Street High, 55-35, systemic risk is on the rise, he says, Jim. I actually found great encouragement with Mike Wilson today. Mike did a pretty good piece, I think, about how we can still buy large cap stocks, even if rates are here. David, I think that he's coming around to the bright side of things to some degree. All right, that's good from Mike Wilson. He was in the, there's a loan in the wilderness there for about some time. You always want to see a guy have more flexibility. That's all I wanted was more flexibility from the beginning. I mean, Carl, I think that when you dig in your heels in a market such as this, you're really kind of hostage to money, to fund flows. So you could be very right but you're rolling in stocks and that's what I think happening. He's very right. More top-down than bottom-up? Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, like, yeah, top-ly Jamie Diamond, if you read him, you would certainly sell your, a lot of your stocks. And he's read, Mike Wilson, I think you'd say, okay, those are really bad worries. But then he drew the conclusion that you should know Caterpillar, up where you dig, you know, it's a generic. And what would have been gratifying, he just said, okay, look, this is my view. Anything can happen. But you need to know that my negativity colors my thinking. And that would have just been versus, say, Ed Jardani, who was very, you know, he was kind of like, oh, the fundamentals, so look that, but that doesn't mean the market won't go hard. That's why we like him so much. Speaking of the weekend commentary, Goldman's David Kosten says, investors are worried about Costco missing comps, Lulu, Nike, Ulta commentary, although Ulta gets an upgrade today over Lulu. Yeah, that was interesting. Ulta got an upgrade and PVH got an upgrade. Those were the two Matt boss. Yeah, two that really just got crushed. I'm reaching out to Elf because Elf has been, I think, the best about trying to figure out where people are buying David. I turn to you for a completely no reason whatsoever. Ulta is under assault from Sephora, which is LVMH, which is at Coles. Now, I don't know whether you've ever been to a Coles or an Ulta. I've been to a Coles. Okay, well, they now play up Sephora more than anything they have. And if you go to Target, they play up L. So you've got other places to go as opposed to Ulta. And I think that's what's heard. LVMH is so smart. The deal they made with Coles was genius because otherwise, David, you and I would not go to Coles. Because that's where we go for Sephora, how we go for Coles cash and visits. I did say I'd been to one. I haven't been to one in about 10 years, but I have been. Well, let's stick her in because in time stamp that, but your point is that Elf is the beneficiary here. Is that what I'm picking up overall? No, Ulta is being hurt because Sephora made this deal with Coles. And then Tom Kingsbury comes in, who's CEO who built Burlington, another story you're never going to walk into. And it's very good. It's kind of a pipe and rack. I don't know. You probably don't favor those. Well, go. Right now I'm wearing a plastic belt for $13. I happen to get two belts for $26 right here because my belt broke. It's every bit as good as my Falcon Air. But you know, I've got the one from it's better. I'm happy to compare it. My belt was better, was more expensive than David's outfit. And instead, I've got this one. But it's look at this thing. Beautiful. This thing is just, I mean, it's made by, I think it's made by DuPont. Whoa. Oh, no. My battery pack. But look at this thing. This is TJX. This is what's going on in America. Some fine vinyl. This is some fine vinyl. You can use it for floor panels. You can use it for a belt. This is what's going on in America. And people have to recognize that when you go to Coles, you are buying LVMH at an incredibly cheap price. David, I have to tell you, in all my years, I never thought the polyethylene would come to this. Look at them. Polyethylene can do. Do you think I and no cows were killed? And I think that far as I know, no water was to spoil. That was good as they get in America. Very nice. Carl, you want to take it somewhere? I was going to, you know, on the challenge, if that's a challenge for looking for a segue, I would go to B.J. Goldman up to buy. I think that's probably right. B.J.'s probably doesn't have anything nearly as bad as this belt. I mean, the other belt, I threw away immediately. This is just, didn't you? So B.J.'s is being kicked. Their butt's being kicked by Costco, but also by Walmart. We haven't talked about Walmart lately, but that three for one split helped it. I know that Chipotle feels like you should do a split. But L.A. is doing a split. Well, no, but I'm saying the tape. And now it's the part where you get to Nvidia and you talk about the need for a split there. David, you know, when I ask Jensen Wong, I asked him about a split. You know, sometimes people don't even listen to what the person adds, and they just slide. I do think that one of the things that the Jack Hock part told me, great CFO of Chipotle, the great CFO of Chipotle made the point that it is great for employees. They don't want a fractional share. And it's great for the public. There's no pushback, no pushback from any large institution. None. Guys, I'm going to move on to Tesla quickly, because it is a mover this morning up, some 3.6 percent. This after Friday, when there were a lot of questions about the lower end part that they're supposed to be introducing and Reuters said they are, and Musk came out later and said, "Yes, we still are." Lower price point, and then also came out and said, "Well, we're going to have full self-driving." Yeah, at five o'clock, because he couldn't take the stock being down, and the FDR was stuck when I'm five. I'm telling you, he was still going to have to stock. He's not somebody who I would expect would be looking closely with the stock. No. Perhaps I'm wrong in that assumption. Well, it's having the intended effect. The stock is rebounding from what had been new recent lows for all, I think, that had not been seen in quite some time. Yeah, 162.50 was the year-to-date closing low, which it got close to. I mean, the analysts clearly have no clue what's going on. Bernstein today thinks this announcement on 8/8 might be more aspirational, like the semi. Georgia thinks maybe things are going so well on the AI front, they can afford to remove focus from a low-cost model. Well, I mean, look, autonomous is about jurisdictions. I remember I wanted to take an autonomous vehicle from the airport, in the Phoenix airport, to the Super Bowl, and you have to get out. They don't wow out everywhere. I mean, it's just, if you think that there's range anxiety, I mean, there's jurisdictional anxiety. It's like, wow, that's about as far as I can go, but I'll drop you off. You can get a real Uber. I just, it's hype. It's just hype. So Uber and Lyft were lower, in part, because of this, maybe this notion that Musk was taking pole position on on Robo. Is that deserved? Yes, but because of the hype, I mean, I just think that when he speaks, people just decide that he's right. And therefore, Uber gets hurt. Real quick, guys, this obviously going to continue to follow the saga of Paramount, which is down another 3%, as shareholders continue to clue into what we've been reporting on for months, basically, which is the favorite deal, of course, the one that involves David Ellison and Skydance and his partner at the private equity firm Redbird, in terms of paying a premium, significant premium to take control of national amusements, which has the control vote for Paramount, then merging Skydance into the studio and issuing an enormous amount of equity, some 3 billion, as again, I've been saying for quite some time, which would be deluded. You're going to start to see some opposition to the deal from some shareholders questioning the special committee in terms of what they're thinking as to why, at least they're greenlighted, this 30-day exclusivity period to try to get this deal done. And guys, you're probably going to need some communication from the other side, saying why they view it as such a positive. One thing that could come out of this, if in fact this deal does succeed, is you start to see some rationalization amongst the streamers, starting with Paramount Plus, whether it either is shuttered in some way and or enters a joint venture with, for example, our apparent companies offering Peacock or in other ways, but there is a likelihood that you will begin to see that process that we've talked about for quite some time and that others have spoken about as well, that there's simply too much money being spent on this content and it's not going to get a return. Well, I will just tell you that you were known as the man who killed that deal. You killed Paramount. Well, I didn't kill the deal. No, you killed it. I just actually reported on the terms of the deal that your reportage killed it, okay? That's what everyone told me. Killed it. Now, we got a spruder segue. That's doing it. There's nothing you do what you just talked about. Okay. Okay. Yes. Back to chips. Okay. There you go. Cheps, baby. Yeah, unless it's like chips that are potato chips a little closer to you. Taiwan semi securing more than six billion from the Biden administration in total of more than 11 billion when they count the loans with the ramped up US chip production with three factories in Arizona. People, this is really important because these are the chips that we wanted and we need it. So, US Commerce Secretary Gina Ramondo joins us now. Madam Secretary, can you explain how important two nanometers is and why this is about security for the United States? Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for having me. This is huge, Jim. You and I have talked about this a lot. This will be the first time in a very long time that we'll be making these leading edge chips in America. AI, you guys were just talking about artificial intelligence. AI runs on two nanometers. Right now, the US makes zero percent of these leading edge chips in America. And TSMC is saying that they're going to start making this in America at scale. So, it's good for our economy, but quite frankly, it's good for our national security because you can't be a great nation if you buy all of your leading edge chips from one company in another country, in this case Taiwan. Do you expect that a company like AMD or NVIDIA would only use this foundry instead of just relying on Taiwan semi-intylon? It's a little hard to hear, Jim. TSMC is the leader in this manufacturing, and AMD and NVIDIA, Apple are some of their biggest customers. But the important thing here, I think, is AI is a game changer. The demand for chips, not just from TSMC, from Intel, from Samsung, is going to go through the roof. And now more than ever, we need this produced in the United States. Okay, well, that's a special part. I turn to my colleagues. There is some criticism of this policy we have of so-called anointing different parts of tech. Could you please tell people that you have, I looked at your team, you know, I met your team. Your team is the foremost team of people in America to be able to judge financially. What's the right thing to do? Yeah, exactly. The team, I have a team of rock stars who work seven days a week, former very senior people from the top private equity and investment banks and VC firms in the world, frankly. We have folks who come straight out of industry, economists who come out of industry, engineers, project managers. So I have full confidence in my team. But, you know, you mentioned we are, you know, giving the company just over six and a half billion. They are investing more than 65 billion. So our money is a small fraction of their investment, not to mention Jim. A dozen suppliers are coming from Asia to the United States to service TSMC. So we're building a whole cluster of this supply chain and chips are unique. Chips are the building blocks of everything digital and AI, and we need to make it in our country. Secretary Romando, it's David Faber. I had the opportunity to pass by the plant not long ago. It's an enormous project, obviously already underway. We some of the fabs, sorry for the background noise here. But I wonder it's been delayed, you know, there had been complaints through TSMC in the past in terms of a lack of potential engineers and the like. How much of that is the concern for you overall in terms of what you're trying to accomplish here, having enough of the actual experts on the ground in the U.S. to be able to get it done. You know, what TSMC is doing here is pathbreaking. You know, it's a scale that they've never invested in the United States before. So obviously it's you have to assume there'll be some challenges. That being said, these projects are on time. We expect them to be producing at scale two and three nanometer in the coming years. We know talent is the rate limiting factor for faster growth. By the way, that's not just for TSMC, that's for every tech company. Everyone you guys talk to probably tells you this country has to produce more engineers, you know, more cybersecurity technicians, more material scientists. And we will do that. We at the Commerce Department are standing up a semiconductor technology center and a huge portion of that is focused on talent development, working with colleges, universities, community colleges, high schools. Talent is the name of the game. The more we produce, the faster we can go. Secretary Ramanu, just a one follow up from me on a broader question about AI. Obviously, as you said, a lot of this is being done to make sure we continue to be a leader in producing the chips that then power the data centers for things like generative AI. But I am curious as to how much of a threat you view it as. Jamie Diamond talking about it recently, Japan, some headlines out of that country as well in terms of its societal impact being a very negative one. Where do you come down in terms of the guardrails, especially given your ongoing conversation with so much of corporate America? Listen, the threats and risks are very real. And so the challenge is we have to harness the benefit, which are incredible, especially if you think about drug discovery, drug delivery, you know, AI is applied to healthcare and education. Very exciting. But we have to keep a lid on the risks. I've just stood up at the Commerce Department, under the President's leadership, an AI safety institute focused totally on safety. Look, with AI, we cannot go fast and break things, cannot. We have to go fast and make sure we have the protections in place, because when you apply AI to, for example, you know, bioterrorism, it's a level of risk we haven't seen before. So it's a balance. It's a balance. We have to be as focused on the danger and the downside as we are on the upside. I'm Madam Secretary. I am all in on this program and you know that I have my first trepidation, which is when I heard that Pat Gelsinger at Intel is $8 billion over, I thought, well, I hope that the Secretary is monitoring their balance sheet, because that is no longer an what I think is an acceptable risk for your program. I hear you. I hear you. That being said, Intel is America's champion semiconductor company. And we are backing that company. We're backing Pat. As you well know, it's a turnaround. He's executing on it. And we've got confidence in him. That's why we put, you know, so much money into the company. That being said, we've partnered with them. It's like any partnership, Jim. Of course, we watch them. We want to hold them accountable. But most of all, we're in it to win it with them. All right, that's good. My concern is, do we know that? And you know, I think this program is so brilliant. Don't want anybody to hurt it. Madam Secretary, thank you so much. Thank you guys. By the way, you can hear more from the Secretary at the first ever CNBC change makers event in New York City on April 18. This year's change makers also include Drew Barrymore, the commissioner of the WNBA, Kathy Engelberg, just on squad this morning, and many others. You can scan this QR code to learn more or visit cmbcevents.com/changemakers. Dow holding 90 point gain here, some key 5200. Our tech's going lower. Watch bonds this morning as well. We did get to 446 on the 10 year data wise today. We'll get cash curry with a town hall tonight and goals be at one o'clock. But of course, everything leading up to CPI on Wednesday. Don't go away. Just a few days away from the second installment of our CNBC franchise, Cities of Success, looking at strong examples of urban economic renewal in this country. Our latest episode shines the spotlight on Denver and Boulder, Colorado, premieres Thursday night at 10 p.m. Eastern time only on CNBC. In the meantime, pretty flattish action to start the day 5205. We're back in a moment. Let's get to Jim and stop trading. There was somebody across current last week where you had a 3M do a spinoff and you had GE dude for Nova. And I want to tell you that for Nova started at 1.50, right down to 1.15. It's now 1.20. I urge people to look at this company. This is the environmental company when it comes to wind. It's amazing. When it comes to power, it's incredible. They are also, of course, it's not gas if you could handle that. But it's an amazing company and people should understand it's got a software component that is pure genius. And even up six, it should be bought. Is it your favorite of the three? Absolutely. Is it really more than aerospace? Yeah, well, aerospace everybody. I look, there isn't anyone in love aerospace. We own GE healthcare but travel trust. But that's not mispriced the way that this one is. This one's just mispriced because of the crazy nature of a spinoff because people didn't know what they got. So they sold it. Now it's starting to come back. All three are good. Scott, Scott Strange is a really good CEO. I just think that Larry Cope gave you three gems. And if you are ESG centric, this is the one you should buy. Yeah, great conversation with those guys last week, Mark. How about tonight? Okay, I've got a copy called Ferguson, which is a lot of people you know is high in plumbing, but HVAC, it's a very exciting, always on the 52 week high list. So I love those. David, welcome back. Thank you. Great job with really great job with Bob. Oh, thank you. And we haven't seen each other. Yeah. And what's great about Disney, people are raising numbers. Are they password sharing new 8 billion free cash flow? So you didn't kill Disney. You could just kill Paramount. Thank you, Jim. No problem. Jim, we'll see you tonight. Bad money, 6 p.m. Eastern time. When we come back, Sarah is exclusive with the Treasury Secretary in China in a moment. You've been listening to the opening bell on CNBC's Squawk on the street. All opinions expressed by the Squawk on the street participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC, Universal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information. Squawk on the street participants. Consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. 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