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Republicans seek to “streamline” a law subsidizing American chip manufacturing, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, as he backtracked from saying they “probably will” try to repeal the program that’s generated $400 billion in promised company investments.

Johnson was responding to a question about his stance on the 2022 Chips and Science Act, after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump last week called the program “so bad.” Asked whether he’d seek to repeal the law if Republicans took control of Congress and the White House, Johnson told reporters during a campaign stop in upstate New York on Friday that “I expect that we probably will, but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet.”

Johnson, who voted against the Chips Act, quickly walked back his remarks and said the law is “not on the agenda for repeal.” Instead, Republicans could pursue legislation to “eliminate its costly regulations and Green New Deal requirements,” he said in a statement circulated by Representative Brandon Williams, a vulnerable Republican candidate with whom he was campaigning.

The Chips Act set aside $39 billion in grants — plus 25% tax credits and billions more in loans — to revitalize American semiconductor manufacturing after decades of production shifting to Asia. Companies have pledged to invest more than 10 times that in US factories, including new plants from all five of the world’s top advanced chipmakers. Micron Corp., the lone American maker of advanced memory chips, plans to spend at least $50 billion to build factories in Williams’ district.

The law, which passed with bipartisan support, aims to address the national security risk created by the concentration of advanced chip manufacturing in Asia, and particularly in Taiwan. It’s generating thousands of construction and manufacturing jobs in Arizona, Texas, New York, Ohio and other states where companies are building semiconductor plants and smaller supply-chain facilities.

Democrats slammed Johnson for threatening both of those priorities.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez thanked the speaker for “his honesty and his forthrightness” about what Republicans would do with a House majority. Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters Saturday that Johnson backtracked on a Chips Act repeal because it’s “not popular, and their agenda is not popular.”

Bloomberg