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The author is editor-in-chief of the FT, chief economist at American Compass and writes the Understanding America newsletter.

Conventional wisdom has it that President-elect Donald Trump will scrap the Chips and Science Act, which aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production. This is based on an offhand comment he made in late October. But a better indicator emerged later in the week when a reporter asked House Speaker Mike Johnson about the issue.

Johnson responded as Republicans usually do when asked if they will follow Trump’s lead: “I think we probably will.” » Within hours, he reversed course and declared that the potato chip law would not be repealed. One congressman said Johnson “apologized profusely.” On no other issue, just days before the presidential election, did the deal with Trump warrant an apology from Republican leaders.

What is happening? Conservatives remain committed to “supply-side” economic policy, defined broadly as efforts to increase productive investment, in contrast to the Keynesian emphasis on stimulating consumer demand. But the traditional Republican tool, tax cuts, has struggled to deliver results of late. Economic analyzes often conclude that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts failed in this regard. As well as the $1.7 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, according to measures favored by Kevin Hassett, chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers.

On the other hand, the law on chips has encouraged a doubling of investment in factories, at a total cost to taxpayers of $39 billion. The world’s five largest logic and memory manufacturers are now investing in the United States, according to at the Ministry of Commerce. No more than two are active in another country.

Vice President-elect JD Vance is a Chips supporter. Trump’s choice for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, gave a speech in July entitled “Industrial policy as a policy of military innovation and insurance”. Elon Musk says brash things like “end all government subsidies”, but no one better understands the essential role of public financing, subsidies and public procurement in stimulating innovation and production at scale.

Chips have their problems. The Biden administration was slow to finalize the commitments and tasked them with diversity quotas and child care mandates. The original law left each project facing the lengthy reviews and permitting processes that accompany federal funding.

Cutting funding to the Chips in response to such setbacks would be bad economic policy and bad political practice. The opportunity for Republicans is not repeal but measures to improve the main purpose of the law, as Johnson said put he. This year, Joe Biden signed a law exempting certain Chips projects from environmental review. vigorous objection senior Democrats. But Micron Technology’s planned $100 billion investment in upstate New York faces challenges delays anyway, because the Army Corps of Engineers says it’s building on a “wetland.” A Trump administration struggling to speed up construction through broader exemptions from environmental review would directly tie the president’s deregulatory agenda to tangible progress, while splitting his opposition in two.

Doubling down on industrial investment, rather than denying it, allows Trump to co-opt one of the few promising elements of Biden’s economic agenda into his own priorities. A renaissance of the defense industrial base would align with Trump’s America First agenda. Last week saw the launch of the New American Industrial Alliancewhich brings together many cutting-edge defense technology companies committed to reindustrialization. Mike Waltz, the new national security adviser, comes introduced the “Ships for America Act” to boost the domestic shipbuilding industry.

The development of natural resources, from energy to essential minerals, will also be suitable. Alongside the push for more oil and gas, support for a domestic battery supply chain is expected to remain strong – even as tax credits aimed at incentivizing the purchase of electric rather than conventional vehicles are under threat. Nuclear power will be the subject of renewed attention. Fuels and technologies like these are valuable commodities, but they also provide the industrial sector with a competitive advantage in cheap and abundant energy.

Trump is fortunate that investments begun in recent years are poised to come to fruition as he implements his agenda. Ribbon removals, jobs, finished products and subsequent investments will be tied to the actions of his administration. The new American “golden age” of which he spoke in Republican National Convention and on election night could become a reality if he takes the measures that help the nation build itself.