Chips Are the New Oil and America Is Spending Billions to Safeguard Its Supply

Even if the U.S. doesn’t succeed in securing the entire semiconductor supply chain, it does have a chance to reverse the recent historical pattern of losing leadership in one manufacturing sector after another, including passenger cars, railroad equipment, machine tools, consumer electronics and solar panels.

“I don’t think we’ve ever done this before: Try in a conscious, targeted way to regain market share in an industry where we were once the leader, but then lost it,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which advocates government support of manufacturing.