When Joe Biden was President, he was able to navigate the House and Congress to have a number of large bills passed. The bills included the Infrastructure Act and CHIPS Act.

In an article by Tripp Mickle and Ana Swanson of the New York Times News Service, the CHIPS Act was to give money to semiconductor companies to make chips in the US. The bill offered $50 billion in federal subsidies to the industry, and $36 billion has been approved to Samsung Electronics, Intel, Micron Technology, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). The plants are going up in Arizonia, New York and Ohio.

All politicians say they want semiconductor chips to be made in the US as the majority are made in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and Japan. There are multiple reasons why this is the case, but it started in the 1980’s. The politicians began pushing for more chips to be made in the US during COVID which because of high demand caused a shortage of chips.

At the joint address to Congress, President Trump attacked the CHIPS Act as bad and he said to Speaker Johnson he should get rid of it. What does that mean?

Chip company executives are worried that funding could be clawed back, are calling lawyers to ask what wiggle room the administration has to terminate signed contracts.

Senator Todd Young, who championed CHIPS, said he reached out to the White House to seek clarity.

In March, President Trump met with the CEO of TMSC C.C, Wei to announced plans for a $100 billion expansion of their Phoenix site as Apple and Nvidia committed to buying more American made chips, part of the expansion was based on the CHIPs Act which the President wants to stop.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all companies have the ability to take advantage of grants and low interest loans or subsidies for business. They are offered because businesses have choices and they do not automatically have to invest in their present location. As an investor you want to have choices, what to do with your dividends – buy more, buy something else, build up cash and the list goes on.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.