Wall Street Journal knocks Trump over deal with Intel

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal is knocking President Trump over the U.S. government’s plans to take a 10 percent equity stake in Intel.

“Not long ago it would have been hard to imagine a Republican President demanding government ownership in a private company, but here we are,” the Journal editorial board wrote Monday. “And now the Trump Administration is toying with a tax on patents too—meaning, a tax on innovation.”

Trump hailed the deal on Monday, calling it “great” for the chip manufacturer and writing in a social media post that the U.S. “paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars.”

“Federal support may help shore up the chip maker’s balance sheet in the short-term. But a big risk is that the government will direct Intel’s business in a way that will make it harder for the company to become competitive in chip manufacturing and design,” the Journal countered.

Deals like the one with Intel, the newspaper’s board argued, would “empower the administrative state” and set a bad precedent.

“Companies already pay taxes on royalties they earn from licensing patents. They also pay taxes on income generated from selling patented products,” the board concluded. “Congress hasn’t authorized such a patent tax, so it isn’t clear the Commerce Department even has the legal power to impose it. But these days that doesn’t seem to matter. Corporate statism is riding high.”

The Journal has been steadily critical of the Trump administration during his second term, and the president sued the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet earlier this year over its reporting on Trump’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

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