Trump's green light for Nvidia sales to China sparks alarm on Capitol Hill
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are split over the Trump administration’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell chips to China, a move that some see as a dangerous concession and others...
By Fox News · Fox News
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are split over the Trump administration’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell chips to China, a move that some see as a dangerous concession and others view as strategic. Some lawmakers are worried about putting one of America’s most valuable products into the hands of its greatest adversary, while others familiar with the president’s thinking believe it’s a move that sets up the U.S. for long-term success. Asked to describe the White House’s reasoning, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, kept it simple. NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD "Dominate," Mast said. He described the decision as part of a larger plan to maintain U.S. leadership in the artificial intelligence (AI) and computing space and said the strategy had been personally communicated to him. He said he was made aware of that strategy in a one-on-one conversation with Jeffrey Kessler, the administration’s under secretary of commerce for industry and security. While he couldn’t disclose the details of that conversation, Mast expressed renewed confidence in the White House’s leadership. "I'll tell you there's a very specific strategy being executed to make sure that we maintain our dominance, also increase market share and widen our gap on all things AI related. Whether it's chips, coding, cloud, all the things related to it — these play into that [strategy]," Mast said. Nvidia, the world’s foremost developer of processing chips, creates the computational power enabling some of the most cutting-edge AI breakthroughs and other developing technologies that play an increasingly important role in defense. The company was first ordered to halt sales to China in 2022 under the Biden administration. "The [government] indicated that the new license requirement will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in Chi…