President Donald Trump’s team just gave China’s rulers the technology they need to beat us in the artificial intelligence race. If he doesn’t reverse this decision, it may be remembered as the moment when America surrendered the technological advantage needed to bring manufacturing home and keep our nation secure.
His advisers, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, persuaded him to lift his ban on exporting Nvidia’s powerful H20 chips to China, which desperately needs these chips to make its AI smarter. The president should have stuck with his gut.
In exchange, the U.S. government has apparently become a financial beneficiary in AI chip sales to China: Press reports indicate that Nvidia and AMD (another chipmaker) have agreed to turn over 15% of their China chip revenues as a condition for obtaining export licenses, an arrangement that effectively monetizes what was supposed to be a national security restriction.
Don’t believe the claims that these chips aren’t very advanced. Before Trump banned them from export to China in April, H20s were instrumental in China’s DeepSeek AI model that shocked the world in January. DeepSeek’s CEO publicly admitted that United States “bans on shipments of advanced chips” are his company’s biggest challenge. In May, a senior executive at Chinese tech giant Tencent said he expected the ban on the H20 to “widen the gap” the U.S. enjoys over China in AI.
China’s lack of unfettered access to U.S.-designed AI chips is America’s clearest advantage in the AI race. By reversing the ban, the White House is helping Beijing’s Communist regime close the gap.
