President-elect Donald Trump met with Apple CEO Tim Cook, he announced during his “Make America Great Again Victory Rally,” saying the CEO plans to make an investment in the United States, suite of DAMAC and Softbank.
The Biden administration has already awarded tens of billions of dollars in the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act passed in 2022 in an effort to boost domestic semiconductor production, but President that of Donald Trump The return to the White House sparked speculation about the plans’ future.
Trump criticized the legislation before the election, saying during his interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in October, “This chip deal is so bad.” The president criticized sending billions of taxpayer dollars to “rich corporations” and suggested that imposing tariffs on foreign-made chips would be a better way to shift production to the United States .
Brian Krzanich, then CEO of Intel, speaks during a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House February 8, 2017 in Washington, DC. Krzanich announced a $7 billion investment to build a factory in Chandler, Arizona, to create advanced semiconductors. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images / Getty Images)
At the same time, several Republican lawmakers — particularly in states where CHIPS Act funding supports facility and job creation — voted for and supported the initiative, and some close to Trump have indicated that it would stay in place.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson told the press in November that Republicans “will likely attempt” to repeal the CHIPS Act, but quickly walked back his comments and said in a later statement that the legislation was “not on the agenda for repeal.”
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Trump’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnickrecently told outgoing Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during a staff meeting that he was committed to moving the agenda forward, according to a Bloomberg report last week, citing people close to him.
Howard Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and Co-Chair of the Trump 2024 Transition Team, speaks at a rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York , October 27, 2024. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Even if the CHIPS law remains in place under Trump 2.0, some adjustments are expected.
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TechTarget reported that “industry observers think it’s more likely that Trump will put his stamp on the CHIPS Act by changing the Biden administration’s enforcement guidelines,” suggesting that some labor requirements and environmental requirements for funding under the law could be removed.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Intel Ocotillo campus March 20, 2024 in Chandler, Arizona. Biden announced $8.5 billion in federal funding under the CHIPS Act for Intel Corp. manufactures semiconductors in Arizona.
For now, at least one chipmaker appears confident that the Trump administration will continue to fund its U.S. manufacturing plans. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told CNBC that the company expects to still receive the $6.6 billion it was granted to build. three facilities in Arizona.
The CHIPS Act’s primary beneficiary, Intel, made sure to mention the program when congratulating Trump on his inauguration Monday.
But as Claude Barfield, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote last month, no one knows at this point whether the CHIPS Act will see any changes.
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“It’s impossible to know at this point how serious Trump’s opposition to CHIPS funding will be when he takes office – he often took notice during campaigns and then failed to follow through ” Barfield wrote in a scathing editorial.
“In any case, his potential removal of funding for CHIPS semiconductor factories is both dangerous and illusory,” he wrote. “It also contradicts policy adopted under his previous administration, when Trump officials began negotiations to bring foreign semiconductor manufacturing plants to the United States.”
