I like President Trump, especially in contrast to the alternatives with which we have been presented. The sharp reversals of many of the Biden administration’s anti-energy and anti-free-speech policies are alone with the price of admission. But I’m almost starting to wonder whether our current president is an agent of the Chinese Communist Party (“Trump says Nvidia can sell powerful H200 AI chips to China,” Semafor, December 8, 2025).
US President Donald Trump on Monday announced that Nvidia will be allowed to sell its powerful H200 chips to China—as first reported by Semafor—in exchange for a 25% surcharge, a move that will open up a huge market for the chipmaker while ensuring US technology remains the standard worldwide.
Nvidia will be given permission to ship the advanced chips to “approved customers” in China and other countries, Trump said in a social media post, and added that other US chipmakers are also eligible….
Proponents of the restrictions argue that they served to slow China and give US companies a head start on gaining global market share during a critical period.
In the meantime, the US has struggled to revamp its domestic chip manufacturing supply to counter over-reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, and China has exerted leverage over the US with its stranglehold on rare earth minerals needed for batteries and other critical technologies.
Semafor notes that “despite the restrictions” that have been in place on chip exports, Chinese companies “have made rapid progress in producing hardware to fill the void left by the export restrictions.” Unaddressed in its article is the void in U.S. export restrictions produced by evading of export restrictions. CSIS describes the “loopholes” that have been exploited in recent years:
Technical gaps due to technocratic blind spots/overreliance on static criteria, facilitating simple workarounds;
Legal circumvention whereby companies skirted restrictions, sliding just under thresholds, to continue operations within the letter of the law; and
Illicit evasion of export controls (i.e., illegal acts such as smuggling), undermining their intended effect and challenging enforcement mechanisms.
One big question being posed, e.g., by The New York Times, is whether Chinese companies will condescend to purchase the H200. “In July, the Trump administration dropped its restrictions on sales of a chip called the H20, which Nvidia developed specifically for China. But Beijing discouraged companies from buying the chip, with administrators warning that it could have ‘backdoor security risks.’ ”
Maybe we’ll get lucky and the CCP and all the companies it orders around will adamantly boycott the newly available H200 chip. They should, since the H200 chips being sent to China will be rigged to explode three days after being installed. Hey, I’m kidding, I’ve been told to say.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the top wackos in Congress, emerges as a voice of reason on the H200 question, telling President Trump: “I urge you to stop ignoring the input of bipartisan members of Congress and your own experts in order to cut deals that trade away America’s national security.”
No Blackwell, no Rubin for CCP
Trump stresses, and this is his idea of putting America “FIRST,” that China, though getting the H200, is not also getting NVIDIA’s even more advanced chips.
“NVIDIA’s U.S. customers are already moving forward with their incredible highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal.”
The idea of letting CCP-controlled Chinese companies—which means all China-based companies, whether or not on some U.S. “approved company” list—use Nvidia’s H200 chip has been floated before now. And the China Hawks, i.e., the saner among top U.S. officials, were reportedly opposed. They seem to have lost the debate. Weapons systems, surveillance, censorship, cyber assaults by hackers “tied to the Chinese government,” and what have you may be more powerful as a result.
It is unnecessary to predict exactly what technological improvements and stronger capabilities will now be possible to the CCP that were not possible before Trump’s decision. We know for sure that the Chinese Communist Party can do more with more than it can do with less.
The solution
What is the calculus that could warrant abetting the Chinese Communist Party’s access to some of the most powerful cutting-edge microchips, chips that can and will be used against its enemies? Is American access to China’s rare earths so powerful a bludgeon?
Then whatever the U.S. government is doing now to increase U.S. mining and non-CCP imports of critical minerals should be magnified to the power of ten, pronto. Meanwhile, send the Party chip technology sufficient to run 1981-era DOS and leave it at that.
