Trump could possibly come for those funds, but the CHIPS Act’s claw-back provisions “are only to be triggered for ‘non-performance,'” Ezell noted—”that is, the company not doing what it promised to do.” And although “in theory,” Trump could “use rescission or impoundment measures to go after duly Congressionally appropriated and obligated funds,” Ezell suggested that seemed “unlikely.” Some of the NYT’s sources suggested that “many” industry people “also expressed confidence that their legal agreements with the Commerce Department couldn’t be changed” on the SIA call.
Instead of awarding subsidies, though, Trump wants to punish chipmakers who do business outside the US, threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductor imports potentially as soon as April 2. But that plan may be shortsighted, as the NYT pointed out that “lawyers and industry executives have said that tariffs on chips themselves are not very effective because the United States imports few chips directly.” Instead, chips are usually placed into electronic devices and appliances in factories in Asia before the consumer tech is imported into the US.
Ezell told Ars that he doubts Republicans can push Trump to pass some new version of the bill, like a CHIPS 2.0. It seems “more likely” that the Trump administration “slow walks some of the disbursements or changes some of the contract terms,” Ezell suggested.
While companies don’t necessarily profit or enhance competitive positions from taking CHIPS subsidies, withdrawing or delaying funding, Ezell warned, could hobble struggling chipmakers like Intel, which some commentators believe got a lifeline through CHIPS funding. In his 2024 analysis, Ezell wrote that Intel’s financial struggles should not give cause to deny CHIPS funding, as Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had once urged, but to expedite funding to keep a viable US chipmaker’s business expanding in the US.
“When Intel is fighting for survival, the last thing the Trump administration should be doing is rescinding financing that’s critical to Intel’s recovery and expansion strategy, or to withdraw financing that’s vital to other semiconductor companies’ significant expansion of US operations, from Micron and GlobalFoundries to TSMC and Samsung,” Ezell said.
