President Trump Orders Broadcom to Cease Attempt to Buy Qualcomm

President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom's $117 billion hostile bid for Qualcomm, capping a remarkable series of moves by the Trump administration reflecting officials’ concerns about an intensifying arms race between the US and China over advanced technologies. While Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, the US panel that vets foreign deals said that the bid could have had implications for the US’s broader technological competition with China. That panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, known as CFIUS, said it was worried that Broadcom would stymie research and development at Qualcomm given its reputation as a cost-cutting behemoth. CFIUS said such a move could weaken Qualcomm—and thereby the US—against foreign rivals racing to develop next-generation wireless technology known as 5G, such as China’s Huawei. Broadcom, which launched its hostile bid for Qualcomm in Novemberi n what could have become the technology industry’s biggest-ever deal, was working to redomicile in the US to evade the panel’s review. But the presidential order effectively ended its acquisition hopes.