Is 18A do or die for Intel fab (Or at least fab in Intel)?It seems like, given TSMC's (and the Taiwan governments) alleged use of itself as a "silicon shield" for Taiwan, that Taiwan is not interested in moving the entire company to a western country, even with the Arizona fab.
Intel seems to know it is do or die for its fab operations. TSMC owns the vast majority of the market, with Samsung behind them. TSMC becoming a complete monopoly is not ideal for CPU makers and customers, and also dangerous for obvious reasons.
Given this, if Intel actually - by some unexpected turn - manages a breakthrough, improves yields, comes ahead of schedule with 18A and successive nodes and can then compete on price and quality with TSM - that it will become the preferred manufacturer by default, simply on the fact that it is an American company.