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The
funding would support 180 manufacturing jobs in Saginaw County,
where Republicans and Democrats were neck-and-neck for the past
two presidential elections. There would also be construction
jobs tied to the factory that would produce hyper-pure
polysilicon, a building block for electronics and solar panels,
among other technologies.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on a call with reporters
that the funding came from the CHIPS and Science Act, which
President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. It's part of a
broader industrial strategy that the campaign of Vice President
Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, supports, while
Republican nominee Donald Trump, the former president, sees
tariff hikes and income tax cuts as better to support
manufacturing.
“What we’ve been able to do with the CHIPS Act is not just build
a few new factories, but fundamentally revitalize the
semiconductor ecosystem in our country with American workers,”
Raimondo said. “All of this is because of the vision of the
Biden-Harris administration.”
A senior administration official said the timing of the
announcement reflected the negotiating process for reaching
terms on the grant, rather than any political considerations.
The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the process.
After site work, Hemlock Semiconductor plans to begin
construction in 2026 and then start production in 2028, the
official said.
Running in 2016, Trump narrowly won Saginaw County and Michigan
as a whole. But in 2020 against Biden, both Saginaw County and
Michigan flipped to the Democrats.
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