Why is this a surprise?

Who do you expect to design and make chips for national security-level programs in the future wars when Taiwan is a deep crater?

Every serious nation state has an arch design house and a fab. It need not be cutting edge (most militry stuff is a few gens old), but it needs to exist. Russia has Elbrus. China has Looonsoon and SMIC. Europe has ARM but is a bit behind here fab-wise. However, STMicro does have fabs in europe.

This is just securing access and control of national-security level resources.

Taiwan.

The thing is, even though the US is trying to create an alternative for itself, once Taiwan is in danger, this would for the EU mean a total US microchip monopoly, so radical action becomes necessary.

If I were a political leader in the EU I would consider nuclear weapons sharing with Taiwan if that happened.

The surprise is the federal government acting like an unfair negotiator, substantially altering the deal after it had already been struck. Equity in return for investment grants was never a part of CHIPS, and was only made part of it by Trump who seems to have originally wanted to kill the deal because it wasn't made by him.