Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks during the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Economic Council, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Federal Housing Finance Agency at the Capitol in Washington, February 27, 2025.
Annabelle Gordon Reuter
President Donald Trump’s decision Nvidia Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that selling the advanced artificial intelligence chip H200 to China is “selling out America’s national security.”
Warren also reiterated her call for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify before Congress about the deal, along with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
The senator’s fiery comments on the Senate floor came three days after President Trump announced on social media that U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia could sell chips to “approved customers” in China as long as the U.S. cut its revenue by 25%.
The announcement drew concerns from some of President Trump’s Republican allies as well as Democrats, who have been vocal about protecting America’s hardware advantage over China in the race for AI supremacy.
In response to Warren, an Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC that H200 sales to China still require a U.S. government license and “at best will represent a fraction of the Hopper and Blackwell computing already sold to U.S. customers.”
“We heard the same argument for H20, and critics of the administration took advantage of it,” the spokesperson said, referring to less powerful chips that the White House had previously approved for sale to China.
“H20 sales were good for the U.S. economy and national security. The U.S. lost billions of dollars after H20 shipments were blocked, and foreign AI chip companies stepped into the gap and grew dramatically.”
The spokesperson added that “America’s foreign competitors and critics of the administration are promoting the same objective of supporting and promoting foreign competition in our vast commercial markets.”
In her remarks Thursday, Warren called on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation to “rein this administration” by imposing new chip export controls. Critics of the bill say it could hurt the competitiveness of U.S. semiconductor manufacturers.
Warren said on the Senate floor that the Trump administration knows that China’s access to chips that were previously subject to export controls “poses a serious threat to our technological leadership and national security.”
He noted that just before President Trump announced his decision on the H200 chip on Monday, the Justice Department touted a crackdown on “a major AI technology smuggling network with ties to China.”
“So why did the president make such a bad deal, selling out America’s economy and selling out America’s national security?” she asked. “It’s simple. In the Trump administration, money speaks.”
“Huang understands that being able to work with Donald Trump may be the most important skill set for a corporate CEO in this administration,” Warren said.
She noted that Mr. Huang attended a $1 million-a-plate dinner at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and that Nvidia later donated to the president’s White House ballroom, which is under construction.
“These are just the most obvious possible reasons to terminate this agreement, and who knows what else Mr. Hwang may have done behind closed doors to persuade President Trump and Secretary Lutnick to make this dangerous concession,” Warren said.
