Experts warn of destabilized trading relations after White House strikes deal with Nvidia to take a 15% cut of certain AI chip sales to Chinese companies

Two days after Cook and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a closed-door meeting with Trump at the White House. The president later announced Nvidia, along with its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), will be allowed to sell certain artificial intelligence chips to Chinese companies – so long as they share 15% of their revenue with the US government.

It was a dramatic about-face from Trump, who initially blocked the chips’ exports in April. And it swiftly prompted suggestions that Nvidia was buying its way out of simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Trade experts say such a deal, where a company essentially pays the US government to export a good, could destabilize trading relations. Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that it creates “the perception that export controls are up for sale”.

“If you create the perception that licenses, which are supposed to be determined on pure national security grounds, are up for sale, you potentially open up room for there to be this wave of lobbying for all sorts of really, dangerous, sensitive technologies,” Chorzempa said. “I think that’s a very dangerous precedent to set.”

    • marsza@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      8·
      24 days ago

      Nah, his meeting with Putin was Putin giving Trump new instructions. This is all a way to crush the USA, and many people have found a way to exploit the process for financial gain.

  • I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org
    12·
    24 days ago

    It doesn’t create the perception that Trump is for sale, it just confirms what we already knew. I hope those CEOs have a good dentist who can clean the spray tan off their teeth.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    12·
    24 days ago

    The White House is calling the deal a “revenue-sharing” agreement, but critics point out that it could also be considered a tax on exports, which may not be legal under US laws or the constitution.

    This Republican administration has had little regard for the legality or constitutionality of their action. If they get sued, the Supremely Corrupt Court will come up with another excuse of a temporarily permanent precedent to last only as long as Trump is in power.