Trump puts stamp on CHIPS Act deals with new office
President Donald Trump tasks a new U.S. Investment Accelerator office with managing the CHIPS Program Office and reducing businesses' regulatory burdens.
A new office called the U.S. Investment Accelerator will soon take over CHIPS and Science Act deals, but it will likely have little effect on existing contracts.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order dictating that a planned U.S. Investment Accelerator will administer the CHIPS Program Office within the Department of Commerce.
According to the order, the U.S. Investment Accelerator will negotiate "much better deals" than those arranged under former President Joe Biden's administration. The accelerator will also manage investments greater than $1 billion and help businesses navigate U.S. regulatory processes. Trump has tasked Howard Lutnick, secretary of commerce; Scott Bessent, secretary of the treasury; and Ryan Baasch, special assistant to the president for economic policy, with creating the U.S. Investment Accelerator office within the next 30 days.
The head scratcher with this is that we already have the CHIPS and Science Act, which does exactly that.
Olivier BlanchardResearch director, Futurum Group
The investment accelerator is likely the Trump administration's attempt to put its mark on the CHIPS and Science Act deal, said Olivier Blanchard, an analyst at The Futurum Group. Blanchard said it's unclear how the new office will be different from existing mandates within the CHIPS and Science Act that aim to ease regulatory burdens for semiconductor companies making manufacturing investments in the U.S.
"The head scratcher with this is that we already have the CHIPS and Science Act, which does exactly that," he said.
Limited effect on existing CHIPS Act deals
Billions of dollars have already been awarded to multiple companies from the CHIPS Act. The Commerce Department has negotiated deals with companies like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Intel, Samsung and other large players in the semiconductor manufacturing space.
Though Trump expressed displeasure with the CHIPS Act earlier this year, Blanchard said he doesn't believe the administration can reverse contracts already agreed to. The Trump administration could potentially slow down or hold back payments for non-performance, such as not building planned semiconductor factories, but it can't outright end the contracts.
"The contracts with the Commerce Department are fairly extensive and iron-clad," Blanchard said. "At best, I don't see what this executive order really does. They can't really go back and renegotiate deals."
Blanchard said that though the Trump administration is taking a different approach to incentivizing companies to invest in the U.S. using methods such as tariffs, the CHIPS Act accomplished a similar goal of crafting deals with companies and advancing domestic manufacturing.
"I don't think there's any political will in Washington to get in the way of building more chip manufacturing plants in the U.S., regardless of how some in the administration might view the CHIPS Act from a political legacy standpoint," Blanchard said.
Though the Trump administration may not be able to affect agreed-upon terms such as milestones and financing within CHIPS Act contracts, it could focus on changing smaller, "ancillary" parts of those deals, said Stephen Ezell, vice president for global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
"Social policy-oriented elements of these contracts, that might be something this office will be looking to address," he said.
Reducing regulatory hurdles
While part of the U.S. Investment Accelerator's mandate is to handle CHIPS Act deals, it's also tasked with attracting domestic and foreign investment in the U.S. more broadly and reducing regulatory burdens in the federal government and in collaboration with U.S. states.
Having a centralized clearing office for major U.S. investments could accelerate and foster domestic manufacturing, Ezell said.
"I think this is a signal that Trump wants the U.S. manufacturing sector to be open for business and to try to remove regulatory friction," Ezell said.
Makenzie Holland is a senior news writer covering big tech and federal regulation. Prior to joining Informa TechTarget, she was a general assignment reporter for the Wilmington StarNews and a crime and education reporter at the Wabash Plain Dealer.
