IN LICKING COUNTY, Ohio, fleets of dump trucks and bulldozers are shifting earth on the future site of chip factories. Intel is building two “fabs” there at a cost of around $20bn. In March President Joe Biden called this expanse of dirt a “field of dreams” in his state-of-the-union message. It was “the ground on which America’s future will be built”, he intoned.

In the spring it was easy to be dreamy about America’s chipmakers. A global supply crunch had proved how key chips were to modern life. Demand was still rising for chip-powered technology, which nowadays is most of it. Investors were less gloomy about chips than other tech, which was taking a stockmarket beating. The CHIPS act was moving through Congress, promising subsidies worth $52bn for projects like Intel’s in Ohio, in order to reduce America’s reliance on foreign fabs.