Lisa Desjardins:
Amanas, refrigerators, microwaves, computers, mobile phones, cars, military-grade weapons are all things that require semiconductors or chips to function.
The bill, which made its way through Congress, includes at least $52 billion in grants and incentives to design and manufacture chips and a 25 percent tax credit to help build high-tech facilities. The size of the bill may increase the next day as well.
Still, the law is a smaller version of a larger bill aimed at boosting US competition with China.
For more on this, I’m joined by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Thanks for joining us.
There is a fascinating legislative story to this. I know you’ve climbed a hill many times to try to get to this point. But let me just ask you one big question. Why is this an important bill? Why is this a priority?
Gina Raimondo, US Secretary of Commerce: Thank you, Lisa.
Well, like you just said, every piece of modern medical equipment, every piece of military equipment, everything that needs a computer or that runs on digital chips. And the reality is that we don’t make a lot of chips in the United States.
In fact, alarmingly, for the most sophisticated chips, we buy almost all of them from Taiwan. We are incredibly dependent on Asia and Asian countries for the supply of chips, including those that are needed in all of our military equipment.
And so the United States is at risk. And we need to build more of these on our shores in the United States, so that we can not only create jobs, but protect our people.
