Barak Obama was technically the first occupant of the Oval Office to have a smartphone.

He finally upgraded from a Blackberry in his last year in office.

But there's no doubt Donald Trump has led the way in turning his phone into a tool of

presidential power.

The busiest single day for the first thumbs came in January during the impeachment hearings

in Congress when he tweeted 142 times.

The output from iPhone 1 can easily distract from what's going on inside it.

The five nanometer chips that power the latest smartphones are at the centre of the struggle

for dominance between the world's two biggest economies.

With 164 days to go, this is checks and balance.

There are a million nanometers in a millimeter, by the way.

I'm John Prado, the economist's US editor, and this is a podcast about the 2020 elections.

Each week we take one big theme, shaping American politics, and explore it in depth.

Today, what do microchips tell us about what's happening to globalization?

The Trump administration has been celebrating an announcement from the Taiwanese firm TSMC

that it will build a semiconductor factory in Arizona.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was boost for the country's economic independence

amid China's creeping dominance in tech.

California's Apple and China's Huawei both rely on TSMC to make phones.

A geopolitical tug of war is being fought over nanoscopic wafers of Silicon.

In this episode, we'll look back at the moment economic nationalist is blamed for America's

industrial decline.

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