Former President Donald Trump criticized the CHIPS and Science Act during a three-hour interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.

Instead, he said that the government should have levied tariffs on the semiconductor industry.

"That chip deal is so bad, we put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come and borrow the money and build chip companies here, and they're not going to give us the good companies anyway," Trump said.

It is not clear who he means by "the good companies." The world's largest contract chip manufacturer TSMC is set to receive $11.6 billion in CHIPS Act funding - $6.6bn in grants and $5bn in loans - and is building a major fab in Arizona.

US companies Intel, GlobalFoundries, and others have also been beneficiaries of the Act, alongside South Korean firms SK Hynix and Samsung.

"All you had to do is charge them tariffs," Trump continued. "If you put a tariff on the chips coming in, you would have been able to - just like the auto companies, no different. More sophisticated, no different."

Tariffs are paid by the importer and not the exporter. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) claims that tariffs would not cause fabs to be built in the US, due to the cost of the factories, which can run from $18bn to $27bn.

"No tariff amount will equal the costs of ripping apart these investments and efficient supply chains that have enabled current US industry leadership," SIA said.

It added: "Moreover, chip tariffs will drive away manufacturing in advanced sectors that rely on semiconductor technology, such as aerospace, AI, robotics, next-generation networks, and autonomous vehicles. If the cost of key inputs like semiconductors is too high, tech manufacturers will relocate out of the US, costing jobs and further eroding US manufacturing and technological competitiveness."

Despite a large decline in chip manufacturing market share, the US still exports a large number of chips - with 82 percent of its sales to overseas customers, making it the nation's fifth largest export. Tariffs could risk retaliatory tariffs from other countries, putting that export at risk.

Taiwan and South Korea, countries that have taken much of that market share, have long invested heavily in their chip fab sector with generous subsidies.

"You know, Taiwan, they stole our chip business, okay?" Trump said. "They want us to protect, and they want protection. They don't pay us money for the protection, you know. The mob makes you pay money, right? But with these countries that we protect, I got hundreds of billions of dollars from NATO countries that were never paying us."

Trump made similar comments back in July, saying that payment would be like protection money.

The United States buys 92 percent of its leading-edge chips from TSMC in Taiwan, meaning any disruption to that supply chain would have a significant impact on the US economy and data center market.

The CHIPS Act has endeavored to reduce some of this reliance in the years ahead, but the semiconductor industry remains a heavily globalized business reliant on manufacturing around the world.