- They are considering investments and aid for clean energy and other priorities, such as support for energy infrastructure.
State of affairs: The Trump administration’s investments in energy, critical minerals and other sectors are already drawing calls for congressional investigations.
“The Trump administration has expanded the openness of industrial policy,” Jennifer Granholm, who served as President Biden’s energy secretary, said at a gathering of energy and climate experts Axios attended in Berkeley, California, last month.
- “You’re not going to have state ownership in companies,” Granholm later told Axios in an interview. “But maybe you take a little bit of ownership” for reasons of national security or global competitiveness, she said.
- Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Mary.) also said he was open to federal involvement, while raising concerns about the Trump administration’s lack of transparency and accountability, he told Semafor.
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Illinois) argued that the United States needs to consider a more aggressive industrial policy to compete with countries like China, while cautioning against direct government involvement.
- “We’ve been overdue for a discussion about, ‘Should the United States even have an industrial policy?'” Casten said at a recent event at the University of Chicago. “For a long time, we viewed industrial policy as something reserved for socialists.”
- Casten said he would support the United States by ensuring domestic manufacturing of parts of supply chains, like electronic control systems that operate energy infrastructure, and even pursuing “smart pricing policy” to have competitive markets.
The big picture: The Biden administration has spent billions to subsidize clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing. Trump has taken government intervention a step further by acquiring stakes in companies ranging from Intel to producers of critical minerals.
- It’s a striking turnaround for a president who has repeatedly criticized Democrats for government excesses.
How it works: The Trump administration has announced investments of more than $30 billion in nearly 50 deals involving state participation and associated financial arrangements, according to a Council on Foreign Relations tracker.
- Investments span semiconductors, critical minerals and energy – strategically important sectors where high costs and long development times can make private financing difficult.
Flashback: Washington has taken stakes in private companies before, notably during the 2008 financial crisis. But those investments were intended as temporary measures to save struggling companies, unlike Trump’s national security-focused investments.
What they say: “U.S. government actions can act as patient capital that helps de-risk a long-term investment or technology risk that otherwise would not attract sufficient private investment,” said Jonathan Hillman, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who created the tracker.
- Hillman said deals announced since January 2025 have also leveraged $28.5 billion in private capital.
Yes, but: Some politicians and energy executives warn that direct government ownership could open the door to political favoritism and market distortions.
- “Government is not a venture capital fund. It’s not a private equity fund. It’s not well suited to picking winners and losers in the marketplace,” Tim Pawlenty, a former Republican governor of Minnesota who now heads the Solar Energy Industries Association, said at the same University of Chicago event.
- “If it starts to go down the slippery slope of ‘this is just the company of the day because we like it’ or they have good relationships or whatever, then you’re in trouble.”
Threat level: “Buying stakes in public companies is so, so, so dangerous,” Casten said.
- “I have no idea how a future president will reduce our stake in Intel without causing Intel’s stock to fall completely,” he added, referring to the administration’s roughly 10% stake in the semiconductor giant.
- To avoid such concerns, Hillman suggests creating a federal chief investment officer to oversee investments and possible sales.
The other side: The White House has defended the investments as a way to rebuild America’s manufacturing industry and secure critical supply chains, emphasizing that companies participate voluntarily, spokesman Matthew Middleton said.
What we’re looking at: Democrats could spend the next two years reviewing Trump’s investments — while debating whether a future Democratic administration should strike similar deals of its own.
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