US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had personally negotiated a deal with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, letting the tech giant sell a lower-end chip in China in exchange for part of those sales revenues being paid to the US government.
The highly unusual deal was first reported on Sunday by the Financial Times.
The arrangement comes amid Washington’s years-long push to restrict Beijing’s access to cutting-edge semiconductors, a policy rooted in concerns that advanced AI processors could bolster China’s military capabilities.
Since 2022, Washington has imposed export controls on such chips, hitting US chipmakers hard — particularly Nvidia, the dominant player in the industry.
Speaking at a White House news conference, Trump said that the agreement centred around Nvidia’s H20 chip, which he called “obsolete” but still commercially viable.
“H20 is obsolete but it still has a market,” Trump said. “So I said, listen, I want 20 percent if I am going to approve this for you, for our country … I don’t want it myself.”
According to Trump, Huang pushed back slightly. “He said, will you make 15? So we negotiated a little deal,” Trump added.
