A day after President Donald hailed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSM) for investing $100 billion in the U.S. he once again urged Congress to scrap the $52 billion CHIPS Act, a Biden-era subsidy program that provides incentives for semiconductor manufacturers to set up sites in the U.S.
Addressing House Speaker Mike Johnson in his first speech to Congress in his second term, he said the 2022 bipartisan CHIPS Act was a “horrible thing” and urged him to “get rid” of it and use “whatever’s left over … to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.”
TSM Invests Amid Tariff Threat
On Monday the President said TSM, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the subsidy scheme and the world’s largest contract chipmaker, would invest billions more to create five new “cutting edge” fabrication plants in the U.S. It comes after TSM and Taiwan’s president pledged to invest more in the U.S. after Trump threatened the industry with tariffs. It takes TSM’s total investment in the U.S. to $165 billion.
As of January, the CHIPS Program Office (CPO) had announced $32.5 billion in grant awards and up to $5.5 billion in loans to 32 companies across 48 projects in 23 states, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). These projects, it said, include total investment of more than $380 billion over two decades, with the vast majority invested by 2030.
TSM has so far received $6.6 billion to help fund its $65 billion investment in three plants in Arizona. While the CHIPS Act provided funds for investing in the U.S., Trump has used the threat of imposing tariffs of at least 25% on semiconductor imports to persuade companies like TSM to build plants in the U.S.
“We don’t have to give them money, we just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won’t have to pay tariffs if they build in America. So, it’s very amazing,” Trump said.
Intel (INTC) is the other big beneficiary of the CHIPS Act, most notably winning $3 billion package from the Departments of Defense and Commerce to “support the manufacturing of microelectronics and ensure access to a domestic supply chain of advanced semiconductors for national security.”
Major winners from the CHIPS Act also include Globalfoundries (GFS), which received $1.575 billion, and Micron (MU) which got over $6 billion, according to the SIA data. South Korean tech giant Samsung also received billions of dollars in CHIPS Act funding.
Other beneficiaries of CHIPS Act funding include Amkor Technology (AMKR), Analog Devices (ADI), Coherent (COHR), Corning (GLW), Entegris (ENTG), and HP (HPQ). Rocket Lab (RKLB), Texas Instruments (TXN) and Wolfspeed (WOLF) have also received CHIPS Act money.
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