Few commodities carry the weight of the semiconductor chip. They are the hidden scaffolding of the global economy, running everything from cars and consumer electronics to missile systems and artificial intelligence. Whoever controls advanced chip-making commands a formidable advantage. That explains why Washington has placed chips at the heart of its industrial and national security strategy. Yet the dream of building a fully self-sufficient semiconductor industry on American soil is more fantasy than a feasible plan. For decades, the strength of chip-making has been its extraordinary specialisation and global integration.

No single country owns the whole process: the machines that etch circuits come largely from the Netherlands and Japan, the raw wafers from a few suppliers worldwide, the most advanced fabrication from Taiwan, and much of the assembly and testing from Southeast Asia. To imagine that all these........

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