Behind the scenes in US technology politics, one of the riskiest deals in semiconductor history is currently underway. Although President Trump’s administration has formally opened the door for sales of Nvidia H200 processors to China, the reality on the trade front remains static. David Peters, assistant secretary for export enforcement, confirmed to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that so far not a single H200 unit has legally reached Chinese customers.
The situation sheds light on the White House’s new pragmatic strategy, championed by ‘AI czar’ David Sacks. The logic behind the conditional release of H200 chips is simple, if controversial: flooding the Chinese market with US technology is intended to dampen the incentive for giants there, such as Huawei, to invest billions in developing proprietary architectures. The theory is that China’s dependence on the Nvidia and AMD ecosystem will more effectively delay Beijing’s emergence as an independent technology powerhouse than total isolation, which forces competitors to innovate under siege.
However, this vision is meeting strong resistance from ‘hawks’ in Congress. Critics fear that the barriers separating the commercial and military sectors are illusory and that advanced systems could quickly be diverted to military purposes. The atmosphere has been thickened by reports of the success of Chinese startup DeepSeek, which according to reports has managed to train its models using Nvidia’s most powerful chips, circumventing existing restrictions.
David Peters admitted outright that chip smuggling is a reality and is now a priority for law enforcement. For investors and business leaders, the message is clear: despite formal approvals, the H200 route to China is riddled with bureaucratic ‘fuses’ that, for now, effectively block the real flow of goods. Nvidia finds itself caught between the pressure to maximise revenue from a key market and the rigorous oversight of the Department of Commerce, which subjects every transaction to meticulous scrutiny.
