House Ways and Means ranking member Richard E. Neal and Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden opened an investigation on November 12, 2026 into the Trump administration’s approval and taxation of Nvidia H200 AI-chip sales to Chinese companies, including a 25% tariff, and demanded that relevant records be preserved.
The letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sets out a transaction chain: H200 chips manufactured in Taiwan would be imported into the United States for a security review, assessed the tariff, licensed by Commerce for export, and then shipped to China. That sequence is central to the inquiry because it combines an import tariff with permission for an onward export.
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 permits presidential action against imports determined to threaten national security. Neal and Wyden argued that using it in this arrangement appears to create an unconstitutional export tax, effectively taking a cut of Nvidia’s China sales while benefiting Nvidia and the Chinese government and undermining U.S. security.
Their committees’ jurisdiction over taxation and tariffs gives the investigation a trade-law focus alongside the export-control questions. The inquiry therefore concerns both whether the chips should reach Chinese buyers and how the administration structured and taxed the transactions.
Records Sought From Commerce
Commerce is being asked to preserve material concerning its Section 232 semiconductor-import investigation and resulting tariffs, its review and approval of Nvidia’s export-license applications, and its communications with or about Nvidia, former chief executive Jensen Huang, and their agents or representatives. The request covers existing and future records and includes a Section 232 report that, according to the letter, Lutnick allegedly sent Trump on December 22, 2025.
The lawmakers warned that federal criminal laws prohibit destroying records relevant to congressional investigations. Their demand makes the department’s internal deliberations, including how buyers were reviewed and how the tariff was constructed, part of the new inquiry.
Licensing diligence is another focus. Citing press reports, Neal and Wyden said Commerce approved sales to Chinese companies with government and military ties, including cutout companies with no physical presence at their listed addresses. They also repeated reports that Commerce suspended a separate investigation into Nvidia customer Megaspeed after outreach from Nvidia.
Intelligence Reports and Political Questions
The letter, citing press reports, describes Alice Huang as a Chinese executive in a close relationship with Jensen Huang and as the leader of Megaspeed, a company suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips into China. U.S. intelligence officials identified her as a Chinese intelligence asset and concluded that she funneled information to the Chinese government and facilitated Chinese access to advanced Nvidia chips.
The letter says Trump and Lutnick were reportedly briefed on that intelligence, but Trump nevertheless granted Nvidia permission in December 2025 to sell H200 chips to China in exchange for a cut of export sales.
Neal and Wyden said the approval came only after Jensen Huang and Nvidia directed at least $26 million toward Trump’s personal priorities, including the White House ballroom. They questioned whether, and to what extent, political considerations improperly influenced the administration’s policy decisions.
Earlier Export-Control Demands
A separate November 9, 2026 letter from House Foreign Affairs Democrats Gregory W. Meeks, Gabe Amo, and Sydney Kamlager-Dove sought an immediate halt to advanced AI-chip exports to China. They also asked Commerce to explain what officials knew about the reported intelligence connections, when senior officials were informed, and why exports continued.
That earlier appeal emphasized the chips’ importance to AI capability, military modernization, and economic competition. It warned that once those capabilities reach China’s government or entities acting for it, the consequences could be nearly impossible to reverse.
The earlier letter centered on stopping future exports. Neal and Wyden’s demand also puts the approval process itself under scrutiny, including whether tariff powers and political considerations displaced national-security judgments.
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