Congressional Democrats are hopeful their Republican colleagues will help them push back on President Donald Trump’s plan to collect 15% of the profits when Nvidia and AMD sell certain chips to China.
“This is a terrible idea,” and “there’s bipartisan opposition,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told Semafor. “What we’re witnessing is that the Trump administration is literally willing to sell out American national security interests for the highest bidders.”
Van Hollen, who pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on plans to sell chips to China when he testified before the Senate, added that “the experts in these fields need to make a determination about what chips could help China leap forward in AI technologies, especially those that have military purposes.”
The White House has defended the unusual arrangement with Nvidia and AMD.