Why Trump called legislation impacting Intel's Ohio plant 'so bad'

NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH) -- Former President Donald Trump said he would have taken a different approach to a program that Intel, at one point, delayed its Ohio plant's groundbreaking to wait on.

The CHIPS and Science Act is a $52 billion funding initiative to get semiconductor heavyweights like Intel to bring more of their manufacturing to the United States. Taiwan, which the world depends on for the lion's share of semiconductor manufacturing, faces an ever-present threat of invasion from China. As a way to encourage the U.S. to reduce its dependence on other countries' semiconductors, the CHIPS Act was kicked around for the better part of a year in the U.S. House and Senate, including several months after Intel announced it would bring a massive factory to New Albany.

But fanfare around Intel's coming project was derailed after it announced in June 2022 that there was already a roadblock. Citing delays on the CHIPS Act's passage, the company halted plans for a groundbreaking with no new date set in stone. Shortly after the announcement, Intel Ohio General Manager Jim Evers quantified the significance of the legislation for NBC4.

“In order to be able to go fast, and we can do some great things and make that site the biggest manufacturing site for Intel, it can be bigger than this Arizona site, which is quite a dream for me, we need some help to do that," Evers said. "The CHIPS Act can help with that.”

In an appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience," however, Trump couldn't disagree more. The former president called the CHIPS Act "so bad."

"We put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come in and borrow the money and build chip companies here. They’re not going to give us the good companies anyway," Trump told host Joe Rogan.

At least one major industry player has previously signaled disapproval similar to Trump's on the CHIPS Act, but particularly with moving manufacturing to the U.S. Morris Chang of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. -- which is spending $40 billion on two chipmaking facilities in Arizona -- has estimated his company's domestic fabrication plants will see production costs much higher than in its home country.

“Maybe it’s double the cost,” Chang said in 2023. “When the cost goes up, the pervasiveness of chips will either stop or slow down considerably.”

Trump proposed an alternate solution to the CHIPS Act on the podcast, claiming that he would impose "a series of tariffs" to encourage semiconductor makers to focus their efforts domestically rather than outsourcing. While New York-based attorney Nicole Brenecki said each has its advantages, she pointed out an issue with the tariff program Trump would have chosen in place of CHIPS.

"Trump makes it appear as if tariffs were paid for by foreign countries," Brenecki told NBC4. "Economists claim that the American companies importing goods will bear this expense, which will in turn be passed on to individual consumers."

Still, she did confirm the legal pathway the former president had to execute that plan, if elected again.

"Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the president can establish tariffs on imports that constitute a threat to national security," Brenecki said. "Said provision permits the implementation of tariffs with no approval from Congress, but following an investigation by the Department of Commerce. The question remains as to what constitutes a threat to national security."

The two months after the postponed groundbreaking saw the CHIPS Act quickly pushed through both sides of Congress, and it eventually received a signature from President Joe Biden. In March 2024, he announced Intel would reap benefits from it including $8.5 billion in direct funding and eligibility for $11 billion in loans. The money could put a sizable dent in cost estimates for the Ohio chip factory, which have gravitated around $20 billion.

While Intel has quietly had issues with actually receiving the funding earmarked for its Ohio plant, facility construction kicked into gear and resulted in a September 2022 groundbreaking featuring Biden himself. Since then, Intel's ambitious project has seen additional hurdles. The company reported a $1.6 billion quarterly loss in August 2024, tanking its stock price and culminating in layoffs of around 15,000 employees. Rumors swirl of another tech giant's interest in buying Intel outright, and CEO Pat Gelsinger also announced that he plans to spin off the Ohio plant's parent division into a new company, as part of a restructuring to restore investor faith.

The New Albany project's construction also hasn't been keeping up with an "aggressive" timeline to have it up and running by 2025. In February, an Intel spokeswoman gave a wider launch window of three to five years from the 2022 groundbreaking.