The Biden administration has launched a crash effort to push out as much of the $39 billion in semiconductor manufacturing funds—appropriated under the CHIPS and Science Act—as possible before it leaves office. The reason? Donald Trump vowed to kill the program.

On November 14, the Commerce Department announced details for a $6.6 billion grant to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to construct three semiconductor plants in Arizona. The company will also be eligible for $5 billion in low-cost loans. The Commerce Department will release tranches of the grant as TSMC reaches agreed-upon milestones. More recently, it awarded over $7.8 billion to a struggling Intel—one billion less than originally planned. (Underscoring Intel’s plight, last week, the company’s board fired CEO Pat Gelsinger, who had led a heroic effort to turn the company around since 2021.) Further large grants are planned in the coming weeks.

The looming problem, as noted above, is President-elect Donald Trump. The Biden administration is working to solidify its legacy of support for strategic technologies and preempt challenges from the incoming Trump administration. During his campaign, Donald Trump assailed the CHIPS Act, blasting large-scale grants and loans to Big Tech companies. Instead, he committed to raising tariffs on semiconductor imports so high that foreign companies would be forced to set up shop in the US—without subsidy inducements. As Trump said on a podcast, “You didn’t have to put up 10 cents. . . . You tariff it so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing.”

It is impossible to know at this point how serious Trump’s opposition to CHIPS funding will be when he takes over—he has often popped off during campaigns and not followed through later. In any case, his potential scrapping of the CHIPS semiconductor “fabs” funding is both dangerous and delusional. It also contradicts the policy adopted during his previous administration, when Trump officials began negotiations to bring foreign semiconductor manufacturing plants to the US.

Semiconductor fabs cost upwards of $20 billion to complete, taking years and highly complicated operations to construct, so TSMC’s Arizona plants will not come online until well into the next decade. That means that for some years, even under present plans, the US will depend on Taiwan-based fabs for its most advanced chips.

The CHIPS Act was passed with substantial Republican support. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s notoriously erratic policy responses combined with pressure from security-conscious Republicans will produce a more favorable stance toward TSMC and other grants when he actually takes office.

Learn more: The Case for Forward-Looking Policies | The Commerce Department Celebrates a “Milestone” in Restoring Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing to the US—Intel, Not So Much | Huawei’s 5G Resilience: Will It Last? | The Re-Emergence of Huawei?