Chips are not like oil as commodities because oil is static (in the ground for millions of years) while chips must be constantly advanced and reinvented to show their value, requiring continuous investment in R&D to maintain technological leadership.

Building semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the US is analogous to building a kitchen: having a facility is necessary but insufficient without the recipe (design/process technology) and chefs (skilled engineers and technologists who know how to build chips), making R&D and human talent critical for technological leadership.

Mature/legacy node semiconductors are of two types: (1) older generations of logic technology with larger node sizes, and (2) specialty technologies built on top of mature nodes with special abilities (higher voltages, higher power, radiation hardness), and specialty technologies are not 'easy' to make but require extensive R&D efforts, making their production in the US a complex economic problem.

Everything has dual-use applications in today's environment because computers used for games can also be used for calculating missile trajectories, so the term 'dual-use' has lost analytical relevance as a category for controlling sensitive technology.

China has a weaker hand in the semiconductor space than the United States; while China will likely seek to retaliate against US export controls in other sectors where it holds stronger positions, China's export restrictions on gallium and germanium are more performative than consequential and will likely increase spot prices, making it more economical for others to source elsewhere.