The Trump administration will allow Nvidia to export its H200 AI chips to China

Nvidia stock jumped 2.2% on Monday after the U.S. Commerce Department said it will soon clear exports of the H200 chip to China, according to Semafor. The move puts Nvidia back into the Chinese AI hardware trade after months on the sidelines.

The approval now sits with Donald Trump, who returned to the White House in 2025. The H200 sits about 18 months behind the company’s newest chips and stays below the most sensitive tier.

The White House plans to direct the Commerce Department to approve the shipment of Nvidia GPUs that lag its newest designs by roughly a year and a half. Officials want a middle line between blocking every advanced chip and handing Chinese buyers fully to local rivals.

The plan centers on the H200, not the latest Blackwell or H100 parts.

China earlier blocked imports of the weaker H20 on security grounds and told firms to stop buying it. That decision shut Nvidia out again and opened room for domestic suppliers across China’s data center market.

The export decision followed public remarks from Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Commerce Secretary, who said the final call rests with Donald.

If approved, Nvidia would regain direct access to the world’s largest single buyer base for AI chips.

China advances as U.S. supply stays tight

The original export wall went up under Joe Biden to slow China’s AI progress. Some officials inside the Trump White House now say the policy did not achieve its aim. Even with limits, Chinese firms kept building.

DeepSeek and Alibaba released large models that matched global performance levels. Huawei filled hardware gaps left by blocked U.S. supply. Supporters of the old controls still argue that the rules bought time and gave U.S. firms an early lead in overseas market share during a critical growth window.

The U.S. still struggles to rebuild its chip supply chain and remains tied to TSMC in Taiwan for advanced production. China also holds leverage through its grip on rare earths used in batteries and critical systems that support both AI and crypto infrastructure.

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