Summary: Biden’s industrial policies, including the CHIPS Act and IRA, are successfully leading to a boom in factory construction in the U.S. This growth focuses on key industries like semiconductors and electric vehicles, although it’s still too early to see if these factories will produce significant output. Meanwhile, export controls are impacting China’s chip industry, suggesting that Biden’s strategies may be working to strengthen American manufacturing.
Semiconductors are a crucial input into every form of military technology, and high-end semiconductors will be crucial for the autonomous weapons that are expected to take over the battlefield in the coming years. (View Highlight)
Green energy — especially solar power and batteries — are crucial in the fight against climate change, but batteries are also the power source for FPV drones, which are becoming the indispensable weapon of the modern battlefield. (View Highlight)
Thus, Biden’s two big signature industrial policy bills — the CHIPS Act and the IRA — address semiconductors, batteries, and solar power. (View Highlight)
Note: (IRA - Inflation Reduction Act)
Biden’s industrial policies have created a massive boom of private manufacturing investment in the most strategic industries. In fact, the amount of private investment utterly swamps the amount of actual government spending commitments. (View Highlight)
The revival of American manufacturing is being prompted by the government but not bankrolled by the government. A small injection of subsidies is really all it took. (View Highlight)