COVID and the supply chain crisis made apparent just how over-reliant we are on Shenzhen and Taiwan for the most basic components. There are several hundred ICs on dozens of circuitboards in every car now that are dumber, slower, and less efficient than a 1990s calculator, that we have lost the ability to produce domestically. These are now bottlenecks to manufacturing in any disruption to world trade.

It doesn't need to be cutting edge, if you have a few board assembly shops and some fabs pumping out small chips in 20-30 year old process nodes it helps the resilience of the economy and geopolitical situation a great deal.