Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump form an unlikely alliance over billions in chipmaker subsidies

Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been a long-time foe of President Donald Trump's

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Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been a longtime political enemy of President Donald Trump

Strange bedfellows The idea was Sanders’ in the first place, he said

Sanders has long criticized the CHIPS Act as corporate welfare for some of the world’s most fitable nology companies

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posed an amendment requiring the Treasury Department to take warrants, equity stakes, or senior debt whenever federal money went to private chipmakers

However, that amendment failed

Now, three years later, Trump is reviving the idea, and Sanders is applauding. “I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago,” Sanders said. “Taxpayers should not be viding billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, fitable corporations Intel without getting anything in return.” For Trump, the move represents a dramatic embrace of state intervention in the private sector, a tactic he has increasingly leaned on in his second term

This month, Trump called for Intel’s CEO Lip Bu-Tan’s resignation over past ties to Chinese firms

It’s an economic strategy that looks less Reaganism, and more of a mashup between populism and state-capitalism

In that case, Trump and Sanders are two apt representatives for the merging camps

The White House did not respond to Fortune’s request for by press time. recoil Investors aren’t thrilled by this new strategy ofpunishing Intel stock for the uncertainty what government ownership entails for the government

The Commerce Department, led by Secretary Howard Lutnick, is still reviewing how to implement the plan, according to Reuters

But the optics are : The United States, it seems, is no longer content to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing without strings attached

For Sanders, it’s validation; and for Trump it’s a newfound strategy

But for Intel, which was once the undisputed king of U.S. chipmaking, it’s yet another twist in an already turbulent year

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