Top Republican on House China panel questions reversal of Nvidia chip curbs
In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday, the congressman raised concerns about the reversal on Nvidia's H20 chips, suggesting it could boost China's AI capabilities.
'The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China's indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China's AI development,' Moolenaar wrote.
Nvidia announced Monday that the chipmaker is filing out applications to sell its H20 chips again after receiving assurances from the Trump administration that its licenses would be granted.
The chipmaker revealed earlier this year that the U.S. government was implementing new licensing requirements that would limit its ability to sell the chips in China. The reversal came shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with President Trump.
Lutnick suggested the Trump administration opted to ease the restrictions as part of a broader rare earth deal with China, underscoring that Beijing is only getting Nvidia's 'fourth best' chip.
However, Moolenaar argued the key issue is how the H20 chip compares to those being developed in China and proposed the Commerce Department peg its export controls to a 'slight technical improvement' on China's current capabilities.
'As the Trump administration has repeatedly stated, the U.S. must ensure that American rather than Chinese tech companies build the global AI infrastructure,' he added. 'At the same time, however, we must also ensure that the world does not adopt Chinese AI models trained on U.S. technology.'
'Approving the sale of large volumes of H20s could give China the computer power it needs to develop powerful AI models that are open to users free of charge as DeepSeek has done with R1,' Moolenaar continued. 'As China has done in so many other industries, this is a deliberate strategy to capture market share and become the global standard.'
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USA Today
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They purchase direct from South Korea and from licensed wholesalers in the U.S., and store their inventory in a warehouse in Ontario, California. After years of no duties, a 25% import tax would create a 'huge increase in costs to us,' Namhie said. She and Greene made two recent orders to replenish their stock when the tariffs were at 10%. But they have put further restocks on hold 'because I don't think we can handle 25%,' Namhie said. They'd have to raise prices, and then shoppers might go elsewhere. The business owners and sisters are holding out on hope the U.S. and Korea settle on a lower tariff or carve out exceptions for smaller ticket items like beauty products. But they only have two to four months of inventory in their warehouse. They say that in a month they'll have to make a decision on what products to order, what to discontinue and what prices will have to increase. 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'For face masks, I feel there are not a ton of solid and reliable substitutes in the U.S.' AP audience engagement editor Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
