Trump to consider allowing Nvidia sales of advanced AI chips to China

Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• Nvidia’s ‘shocking’ arrangement with Trump

• Trump deploys National Guard in Washington

• How Pakistan won over the White House

Donald Trump said he will consider allowing Nvidia to sell a more advanced artificial intelligence chip in China, after confirming he had “negotiated a little deal” to give Washington a share of the chipmaker’s revenues from the country.

The latest: Trump said yesterday that he planned to discuss a new deal with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to allow it to sell chips to China based on its latest Blackwell platform. The US president’s comments came after he confirmed an unprecedented arrangement with Nvidia, revealed by the FT on Sunday, that involves the US taking 15 per cent of Chinese sales of Nvidia’s H20 processor, which it introduced in 2023 to comply with Biden-era controls on AI chips.

Why it matters: Approval would unlock billions of dollars in sales for Nvidia after years of lobbying by Huang for access to the Chinese market, despite national security concerns in Washington. People familiar with the situation said some national security officials in the Trump administration were considering resigning over the signals that the president has sent in recent days about allowing China to obtain advanced American technology.

What analysts said: “The arrangement is shocking,” Michael Sobolik, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a specialist in US-China relations. “Not only because of the national security implications, but because this just hasn’t happened before. Pay-offs aren’t supposed to be a precondition for foreign commerce.” Read the full story.

• Chinese AI: Manus, a start-up hailed as the next DeepSeek, has come under fire from China for leaving the country for Singapore after Washington scrutinised its Silicon Valley backer.

• Tariff truce extended: Trump has extended a trade war truce with China for another 90 days, two US officials have said.

• Opinion: China’s investigation into Nvidia chips is a reminder that Trump isn’t the only world leader with a penchant for capricious decision making, writes Chris Miller.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

Five more top stories

1. Trump has deployed the National Guard in Washington and taken control of the city’s police force, as he declared “a public safety emergency” in the US capital. While Washington ranks among the 10 deadliest cities in the US, data compiled by the city’s police department shows that homicides dropped 32 per cent between 2023 and 2024 to the lowest level since 2019. Here’s more on Trump’s latest effort to use federal military power on US soil.

2. The world’s largest battery maker CATL said it was suspending operations at a lithium mine in China, sending shares of other producers soaring on speculation that Beijing is moving to tackle industrial overproduction.

3. Israel has killed a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza and four of his colleagues at the television network in an air strike targeting them in a media tent. The Israeli military took credit for the strike that killed 28-year-old Anas Al-Sharif after months of threats and unproven allegations that he was the head of a Hamas cell.

4. Lawyers for Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron hired investigators to research the US podcaster Candace Owens as they prepared to sue her. The investigation into Owens, a prominent rightwing influencer who claimed Brigitte Macron was born male, highlights the seriousness with which the French president and first lady are treating the lawsuit. Some details from the investigation were shared with the FT.

5. A little-known South Korean artificial intelligence start-up that has produced a large language model that performs as well as advanced systems made in the US and China is seeking to boost the Asian country’s goal of catching up in the global AI race. Sung Kim, chief executive of Seoul-based Upstage, told the FT that “American and Chinese LLMs used to be way out in front of everyone else, but that is no longer the case”.

News in-depth

Pakistan’s relations with Washington were assumed to be heading for the rocks after the re-election of Donald Trump, who once accused the nuclear-armed country of offering the US “nothing but lies and deceit”. Instead the Trump administration’s ties with Islamabad appear to be blossoming, while India has faced scorn despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s previous friendly bond with the US president. From crypto diplomacy to flattery, here’s how Pakistan wooed Trump — and rattled New Delhi.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Indian whisky: Demand is booming but the country’s booze market has long been mired in a web of levies and complex regulation, writes Chris Kay.

• Wealth machines: New research challenges the notion that the US enjoys a monopoly on wealth creation, writes Ruchir Sharma.

• Trump-Putin summit: Gideon Rachman explains the best and worst-case scenarios for Ukraine and Europe ahead of the Alaska meeting.

Chart of the day

Australian beef producers hope to prolong a boom in sales to the US after Trump’s tariffs handed the country an advantage over rival exporters such as Brazil.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Don’t miss Jemima Kelly’s latest column about how she became addicted to padel, and what the world’s fastest-growing sport taught her about the power of play.