India, Aug. 11 -- In the grand industrial pageant of the 21st century, the CHIPS and Science Act was meant to be a triumphant American overture-the policy symphony that would restore silicon sovereignty to the heartland. Legislators imagined a new age of fabrication and design rising from the dust of Ohio and Arizona, paid for with public treasure and national optimism.

Instead, they produced a sluggish, politicized, and bureaucratically entangled mechanism-one that has failed to deliver a timely or efficient semiconductor renaissance.

Three years into its rollout, the CHIPS Act has largely ossified. It has become a repository for grand intentions and slow execution. Meanwhile, tariffs-long maligned as crude and archaic-have quietly pro...