President Joe Biden today signed an executive order aimed at addressing a semiconductor shortage that has forced many automakers including Ford and General Motors to slow production.

The executive order calls for a 100-day review of critical supply chains for semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, rare earth minerals, and pharmaceuticals with the goal of identifying near-term steps the administration can take, including with Congress, to address these supply chain shortages.

“The United States must ensure that production shortages, trade disruptions, natural disasters, and potential actions by foreign competitors and adversaries never leave the United States vulnerable again,” a White House statement said.

Additionally, the order calls for a second year-long review of U.S. supply chains that will focus on six key sectors: defense, public health, information and communications technology, energy, transportation, and agriculture.

The long-term review seeks to identify critical goods and industrial bases within supply chains and the manufacturing capabilities required to produce those materials.

The executive order comes amid a global semiconductor shortage that has brought the auto industry to its knees. But while the order calls for an investigation of U.S. supply chains, it stopped short of enacting the National Defense Authorization Act to boost semiconductor manufacturing as a bipartisan group of lawmakers have previously suggested.

Unfortunately for automakers, there doesn’t appear to be an easy or quick way to boost semiconductor capacity. Several analysts have pointed out that while propping up domestic fabs may help to shore up national security concerns, it probably won’t address automakers' needs in time.

“Semiconductor fab capacity is a super capital intensive industry,” Supplyframe CMO Richard Barnett said, adding that it typically takes between two and five years to bring a new fab online.

The supply chain analyst also noted that even if the White House enacted the National Defense Authorization Act, it would be hard-pressed to force foreign fabs, like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), to boost production. In theory, such an order could, however, force some U.S. chipmakers to scale back orders to prioritize chips needed by automakers, he confirmed.

The problem is, with a few exceptions including Intel and Micron, U.S. chipmakers are largely fabless, meaning they contract the actual manufacturing of chips to companies like TSMC and Samsung Electronics.

And while both TSMC and Samsung have announced plans to build fabs in the U.S., neither facility is expected to come online until 2023 at the earliest.

Despite this fact, earlier this month Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Micron signed a letter penned by the Semiconductor Industry Association, calling for the Biden administration to provide subsidies and tax incentives to support semiconductor manufacturing.