US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States will allow chip giant Nvidia to export its advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, after reaching an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Nvidia is currently the largest US company by market value, which has grown rapidly with the AI wave.
The announcement marks a notable shift in America’s technology export policy, especially for advanced AI chips. Former US President Joe Biden’s government had heavily banned the sale of advanced chips to China over concerns about its applications in the Chinese military.
Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social, saying he had informed Xi that Washington would allow Nvidia to export its H200 products to “approved customers” in China and other countries, “under conditions that allow continued strong national security.”
“President Xi responded positively! The United States will be reimbursed 25%,” he wrote, adding that the move would benefit American taxpayers, grow jobs, and strengthen American manufacturing.
A White House spokesperson clarified that the 25% tariff would be an import tax from Taiwan where the chips are made. They will be imported to the US for safety review before being exported to China.
Most advanced chips are not part of the deal
The US President assured that the country will maintain its lead in AI as US customers are already moving towards highly advanced Blackwell chips, followed by the next generation of Rubin chips, adding, “None of that is part of the deal.”
“Offering the H200 to approved customers vetted by the Commerce Department strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America,” Nvidia said in a statement. Its Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has long lobbied the White House to reverse a Biden-era policy of restricting China’s access to powerful chips.
Trump said the Commerce Department was finalizing the details but “the same approach will be applied to AMD, Intel and other great American companies.”
Democrats are sounding alarm bells
Several Democrats in the US Senate reacted to the deal by issuing a statement, calling it “a massive economic and national security failure.”
“Access to these chips will allow China’s military transformative technology to make their weapons more lethal, conduct more effective cyberattacks against American businesses and critical infrastructure, and strengthen their economic and manufacturing sectors,” the lawmaker said.
The senators cited a recent statement from Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which said that the lack of access to advanced US-designed chips was their biggest challenge in competing with US AI companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Perplexity.
Meanwhile, Alex Stapp of the Washington-based Institute for Progress called the policy “a lofty goal in itself” in a football context. He said the H200 is “6 times more powerful than the H20, which was the most powerful chip previously approved for export.”
The deal was announced days after Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, pointed to a backroom arrangement between Trump and Huang that included a donation for the construction of the East Wing Ballroom at the White House.
“I’m asking Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Union Pacific, and Comcast about their donations to Trump’s ‘Big Gold Ballroom,'” she said in a post on X.
The ball is in China’s court
China does not currently allow its companies to use American technologies, making it unclear whether Trump’s announcement will prompt policy changes in Beijing.
Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said, “Chinese companies want the H200, but the Chinese state is driven by paranoia and hubris — paranoia about backdoors and reliance on American chips, and pride in pursuing domestic alternatives.”
“Washington can approve the chips, but Beijing still has to let them in,” he said.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko