Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the U.S. taking a ten p.c stake in Intel amid issues about authorities interference within the free market.
“Chips are a strategic necessity for us,” Bessent advised Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday throughout an look on Fox Enterprise’s “Mornings with Maria.”
“One of the things we learned during COVID was that the United States has [five to seven] strategic vulnerabilities in critical industries, and President Trump has set about de-risking that,” he continued.
Bessent famous there’s “substantial upside for the American taxpayer” as President Trump seeks to reduce the strategic vulnerabilities.
“President Trump is going to be the only president in modern times who creates assets for the American people rather than debt,” Bessent stated, noting Trump “saw that Intel had been given grants and wanted to know why the American taxpayer wouldn’t participate in the upside.”
“So there’s $11 billion of immediate value,” Bessent continued. “And I think there’s a very good chance here that it could be much more.”
Trump introduced Friday that Intel agreed to present the federal authorities a ten p.c stake within the struggling firm in change for cash beforehand allotted underneath the Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act.
Trump on Monday steered extra offers might be forthcoming.
“Yeah, there will be other cases, or if I have that opportunity again, I would do that. Then you do have stupid people say, ‘Oh that’s a shame,’” Trump stated. “It’s not a shame. It’s called business.”
Trump introduced the Intel deal after he reached a separate deal earlier this month with two different U.S.-based chipmakers, Nvidia and Superior Micro Gadgets, that may see them pay the U.S. authorities 15 p.c of their income from AI chip gross sales to China.
Bessent, within the Wednesday interview, all however dominated out the prospect of the U.S. buying a stake in Nvidia, saying, “I don’t think Nvidia needs financial support so that seems not on the table right now.”
However he left the door open to the U.S. taking stake in different industries.
“Could there be other industries where we’re reshaping, something like shipbuilding?” Bessent requested. “Sure, there could be things like that. And these are critical industries that … we have to be self-sufficient in the United States.”
