Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event last year. Credit: Shutterstock / World Times

Texas could lose 15,000 high-paying jobs and $4.7 billion in investment if Congress acts on President Donald Trump’s request to repeal the bipartisan, Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act, data compiled by the Democratic National Committee shows.

The DNC shared its report with the Current in the wake of Trump’s marathon address to Congress on Tuesday. During the speech, the president called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to repeal the act, designed to shore up domestic production of semiconductor chips.

“You should get rid of the CHIPS Act,” Trump said, before addressing Johnson directly. “And whatever is left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt. Or any other reason you want to.”

Signed by Biden in August 2022, the CHIPS Act is an effort to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. by offering lucrative incentives to companies willing to relocate their operations.

The objective of the Biden administration was to allow the U.S. to have a supply of semiconductor chips available if China were to invade Taiwan, which produces 60% of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90% of advanced chips used in anything from computers to cars to military gear.

Since becoming law, the CHIPS Act has helped facilitate nearly $400 billion in semiconductor investments across the U.S., including Texas.

In December, the Biden White House awarded $4.7 billion in CHIPS funding to Samsung to construct manufacturing and research facilities outside Austin. That investment was part of the Korean firm’s $37 billion bid to turn Central Texas “into a comprehensive ecosystem for the development and production of leading-edge chips in the United States,” the Austin American-Statesman reported at the time.

“It’s no surprise that Trump — the master of shipping jobs overseas, rigging the economy for billionaires, and putting working people last — wants to roll [the CHIPS Act] back,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “Trump isn’t doing a damn thing to help working Texans, and that’s why economists believe his policies are putting us on the brink of a recession. This isn’t America first — it’s China first.”

Indeed, the CHIPS Act was so well-received that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — a vocal critic of the Biden Administration — signed his own version of the law in 2023, dubbed the Texas CHIPS Act. Emulating the federal law, the Texas measure uses public subsidies to attract semiconductor manufacturers to the Lone Star State.

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This article appears in Mar 5-18, 2025.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...