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Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., is seen during a group photo with freshmen members of the House Republican Conference on the House steps of the Capitol on Monday, January 4, 2021.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

A Republican lawmaker is readying a bill that would require businesses subsidized by foreign governments to disclose that information when they pursue large mergers subject to U.S. regulatory review.

The bill, led by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wisc., and tentatively named the “Stopping Foreign Government Subsidies for Mergers Act,” would require businesses backed by state-owned entities to notify regulators of that backing when they report a deal of more than $92 million in value.

That additional information can help regulators assess how a company might act once merged, Republican Federal Trade Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips, who supports the legislation, told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

Noah Phillips, commissioner, Federal Trade Commission, testifies during the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing tilted The Invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield and the Future of Transatlantic Data Flows, in Russell Building on Wednesday, December 9, 2020.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

“Our presumptions in the law and the way we do our work are based on the notion fundamentally that firms profit maximize. They seek to make money,” Phillips said. “But state-owned entities don’t necessarily have the pursuit of profit as their ultimate motive, and as a result, they may not act in the same way as the companies that we normally look at do.”

A firm that values certain political objectives over profits might make a different calculation when it comes to the risk of pursuing anticompetitive conduct, like steeply undercutting rival prices only to raise them later on. While Phillips declined to speculate on the types of conduct in which a state-owned entity might engage, he said it would help to know their potential incentives in order to assess the facts of each individual case.

As it stands, regulators may become aware of a foreign government subsidy in a merger case, but Phillips said requiring that information up-front will allow them to “develop expertise and ask the right questions.”

The bill builds on a recommendation last year from the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In its annual report to Congress, the commission recommended the FTC have a system in place to determine how proposed transactions are influenced by such foreign government support.

The commission found that the Chinese government would back companies it saw becoming national champions and eventually push them to expand into the U.S. and other countries.

“This process assists Chinese national champions in surpassing and supplanting global market leaders,” the commission wrote in its annual report to Congress.

The commission said “China’s trade-distorting practices” mean that “U.S. workers and companies, no matter how innovative and efficient, struggle to compete when the Chinese government so decisively tilts the playing field in favor of Chinese companies through a variety of legal, regulatory, and financial mechanisms, and when U.S. companies are granted access to the Chinese market, it is at the cost of transferring valuable intellectual property to their Chinese counterparts.”

The group warned that the risk is particularly acute when it comes to emerging technologies, where China allegedly seeks to “surpass and displace the United States altogether.”

“Failure to appreciate the gravity of this challenge and defend U.S. competitiveness would be dire,” the commission wrote. “Because these emerging technologies are the drivers of future growth and the building blocks of future innovation, a loss of leadership today risks setting back U.S. economic and technological progress for decades.”

Though Fitzgerald said he’s in the early stages of engaging with colleagues about co-sponsoring the bill, he said he believes China’s apparent willingness to devote major resources toward corporate subsidies could rally lawmakers on both sides of the aisle behind the proposal.

The bill would not place any national security assessment requirements on the antitrust agencies, which Phillips said are best left to the existing agencies responsible for that type of review. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) within the Treasury Department is already responsible for reviewing national security implications for mergers with foreign entities, for example.

But Phillips and Fitzgerald said there remains a need to assess foreign-subsidized businesses from a potential harm to competition perspective, which is squarely within the antitrust regulators’ purview.

Doug Melamed, a Stanford University law professor and former Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, said one possible outcome of such legislation, if passed, would be a chilling of mergers with state-owned entities.

“The most important effect of that kind of requirement might be to deter the acquisition in the first place,” Melamed said. “Because if the Chinese have some interesting stake in company X that would not ordinarily surface … this might deter it if they don’t want their position to be known.”

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CNBC Daily Open: SoftBank goes all in on OpenAI as ‘Big Short’ investor issues caution on AI firms

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November 12, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: SoftBank goes all in on OpenAI as 'Big Short' investor issues caution on AI firms

Jensen Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., left, and Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., during a fireside chat at the Nvidia AI Summit Japan in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.

Akio Kon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SoftBank is selling its entire stake in Nvidia — but not for the reasons you might think.

In its earnings statement released Tuesday, the Japanese group said that it had sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October for $5.83 billion.

At first blush, this could be read as a sign that Nvidia’s high valuations are causing SoftBank some unease. And if SoftBank — which infamously pumped $18.5 billion into WeWork only to value it at $2.9 billion eventually — is tamping down on its usual optimism regarding its investments, then retail traders should probably pay attention.

Adding to such worries are comments by Michael Burry — who bet against subprime mortgages before they caused a whole financial crisis in 2008 — on major artificial intelligence companies.

Burry wrote Monday in a post on X that those firms are “understating depreciation” of AI chips, which “artificially boosts earnings — one of the more common frauds of the modern era.”  CNBC could not independently confirm that companies were practicing this.

This doesn’t seem to be SoftBank’s concern, however. A person familiar with the group’s sale told CNBC that it had nothing to do with AI valuations. On the contrary, cash from offloading Nvidia chips will be redirected to SoftBank’s $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI, the person said.

Burry said in his post that he will reveal “more details” on Nov. 25, and exhorted readers to “stay tuned.” That might not be enough enticement for SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

— CNBC’s Yun Li, April Roach and Dylan Butts contributed to this report.

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Singapore sees further cooperation between ASEAN and EU on digital economy, deputy PM says

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November 12, 2025

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Singapore sees further cooperation between ASEAN and EU on digital economy, deputy PM says

Gan Kim Yong, Singapore’s deputy prime minister, during a panel session, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025.  

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Despite rising trade tensions, Singapore still wants to push ahead with a “multilateral, rules-based trading system,” and sees further cooperation between ASEAN and the European Union.

This was according to Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, who spoke at the Singapore Fintech Festival on Wednesday.

Gan, who is also Singapore’s minister for trade and industry, said in a fireside chat with DBS CEO Tan Su Shan that “if we are able to bring both EU and ASEAN together to discuss a digital economic agreement between EU and ASEAN, I think there will be a major breakthrough.”

He also added, “EU will not be part of ASEAN. ASEAN will not be part of EU, but it doesn’t stop [the] EU and ASEAN [to] come together to discuss areas that we can work together.”

Gan did say however, that this will take time, and the two sides will first discuss a digital economic collaboration, “how we can set out basic rules, and then consider next steps.”

Southeast Asia’s digital economy stands at over $300 billion in 2025 in gross merchandise value, according to the 2025 Google e-Conomy SEA report.

He said he hoped that ASEAN will have a digital economy agreement with the EU, as well as for the Southeast Asian bloc to work with the Gulf Cooperation Council and the CPTPP to find ways to facilitate trade investment.

The CPTPP refers to the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership that was formed after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in his first term.

“So I think there are a lot of opportunities still, despite the headwinds and the uncertainties we are seeing.”

Separately, Gan also said that Singapore would like to work with partners to think about how the World Trade Organisation can be transformed.

“WTO is still [an] important foundation for this rules-based trading system,” he said.

“We will need to transform because the current design architecture of WTO may no longer be workable, and it’s important for us to come together to discuss what is the way forward, what are the areas that require transformation,” Gan added.

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Nvidia supplier Foxconn third-quarter profit beats expectations, rising 17% on AI demand

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November 12, 2025

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Nvidia supplier Foxconn third-quarter profit beats expectations, rising 17% on AI demand

Foxconn Chairman Young Liu delivers a speech during the Hon Hai Tech Day in Taipei on Oct. 18, 2023.

I-hwa Cheng | AFP | Getty Images

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit jumped 17% from a year earlier, driven by growth in its artificial intelligence server business.

Here’s how Foxconn did in the September quarter compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

  • Revenue: $2.06 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($66.29 billion) vs. NT$2.06 trillion expected
  • Net profit: NT$57.67 billion vs. NT$50.41 billion

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, is best known as the world’s largest manufacturer of Apple‘s iPhones, but has been shifting into other business avenues, including AI. The firm manufactures server racks designed for AI workloads and has become a key partner to American AI chip darling Nvidia.

The company said it expects operations in the second half of the year — the traditional peak season — to maintain continuous quarterly growth, citing stronger AI server shipments and rising demand for information and communications technology products.

However, Foxconn cautioned that global political and economic uncertainty, along with exchange rate fluctuations, will require continued close monitoring.

Foxconn reported that its ‘Cloud and Networking’ segment saw strong year-on-year growth, supported by demand for AI server racks.

Foxconn’s server manufacturing business is currently in a strong growth phase, underpinned by robust demand, Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

The company is leveraging its dominance in contract manufacturing to secure both current and future orders, Lam said, describing it as a clear case of “follow the cash” strategy that involves sacrificing some consumer electronics orders.

He added that Foxconn’s pivot toward high-growth server manufacturing “is clearly paying off,” even as it trades parts of its consumer electronics footprint for longer-term momentum.

While component price volatility, currency swings, and logistics challenges can pressure margins, Lam said he expects Foxconn’s fourth-quarter results to “remain favorable.”

The electronics contract manufacturer also said it is partnering with Nvidia, Stellantis and Uber to build so-called “Level 4” autonomous vehicles, which doesn’t require a safety driver to be present.

Recently, Foxconn signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi Electric on Nov. 6 to jointly supply energy-efficient AI data center solutions globally. Besides AI data centers, Foxconn and Mitsubishi Electric plan to explore additional new business models and solutions using their combined technological and knowledge capabilities.

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