Discretes, most power management ICs, signal conditioning, etc. are commodity items. There's absolutely no profit motive to supply them in the west, at least until such state as they aren't available on the world market -- like any other commodity.
Even at the height of the cold war, there was nonzero trade between US and Russia, for example. I... -- Actually, I'm quite far from an expert on the history of international trade, so, I might not be making the point I meant to make here in the first place. But anyway, more just to say that, even if things go *very* wrong in the immediate future, basic items may remain available. How basic, depends on how "wrong" things are going at the time.
A more interesting point to raise might be, how inhomogeneous that availability is. I would expect the mechanism is more by tariff and embargo than outright lack of supply. The question then is: how onerous is it to bypass those restrictions, whether by merely paying the premium, or stacks and stacks of trade permits, or circuitous routes through other trading partners (laundering, as it were)... The consequence being, trade might not be restricted outright, even in terms of overall quantity shipped, but it might also only remain available to the largest or richest customers. You know, welcome to USA, megacorp rules all, business as usual.
Probably some strong reasons to build new plants right now are:
1. Simply to satisfy demand. The profit margins might not be much right now, but still enough to justify the expenditure based on projections.
2. High technology is the most vulnerable. It's large and pricey items, and they're regularly subject to trade restrictions already.
3. High technology is the most profitable. If a facility in a given location is likely to become unavailable for that purpose, it makes sense to either move it, or build a new one.
Tim
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