Free Trade

Eric Boehm | 8.19.2025 1:15 PM

President Donald Trump is not the first prominent American politician to demand that the federal government take partial control of Intel and other manufacturers of advanced computer chips.

But it might surprise you to learn whose idea he has embraced.

During debate over the CHIPS and Science Act, the 2022 bill that ultimately delivered $52 billion in subsidies to chipmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) floated the very same idea that Trump is now pursuing: that the government ought to have a stake in those companies.

In a July 2022 statement, Sanders explained that he was opposed to the CHIPS Act, which he viewed as a "bribe"........

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