US President Donald Trump called for ending a bipartisan $52 billion semiconductor subsidy program that’s spurred more than $400 billion in investments from companies like TSMC and Intel.

Whether or no, chip stocks rallied in premarket trading Wednesday. Super Micro Computer rose 4%; Marvell Technology rose 3%; Nvidia, Lam Research, Micron, Arm, STMicroelectronics, Broadcom, TSMC, NXP Semiconductors, and ASML rose 2%; Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel rose 1%.

“Your Chips Act is horrible, horrible thing,” the president said in a prime-time address to Congress on Tuesday. Trump implored US House Speaker Mike Johnson to get rid of the legislation and use “whatever is left over” of funds apportioned to the program to “reduce debt or any other reason.”

His remarks were met with applause in a chamber that less than three years ago passed the Chips and Science Act. Vice President JD Vance, whose home state of Ohio won a massive Intel project thanks to the law, stood up to show his support for its revocation.

The Chips Act is among the most significant US forays into industrial policy in more than a generation. It set aside $39 billion in grants — plus loans and 25% tax breaks — to revitalize American semiconductor manufacturing, as well as $11 billion for chip research and development. The aim was to reduce reliance on Asia for electronic components that power everything from smartphones to massive data centers.

Democrats and Republicans have touted the Chips Act as crucial to US national and economic security, and Trump could have a hard time getting the votes to repeal it. Dozens of GOP lawmakers voted for the measure, and many red districts have won factories or other projects supported by the law.

Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. have announced or begun construction on multibillion-dollar projects in the US that were contingent on funding and support from the US government. Representatives of the companies declined to comment on the president’s remarks.

Trump has expressed support for the overall goal of boosting domestic chipmaking, but he’s consistently derided the Chips Act as the wrong means of achieving it. Instead, the president has called for tariffs to stoke investment in the US, and he’s signaled that import levies on chips could come as soon as next month.

Companies can avoid those duties, Trump has said, by building factories on American soil. He has not offered additional details.

On Monday, Trump credited the tariff threats for TSMC’s decision to invest $100 billion in the US, on top of a previous $65 billion commitment. He touted that project in his address Tuesday, referencing the full $165 billion figure. “We’re giving them no money,” Trump said. “All that was important to them was they didn’t want to pay the tariffs.”