The admin’s entire AI and high tech strategy is predicated on the idea that a leading position in AI is critical for both national security and our future economic growth and independence. The sole advantage we have over China is in the frontier chip area, and Huawei has admitted they are 2 years away from being able to produce chips that match the H100’s now being allowed. Even if he was going to make this corrupt and anti-American decision, he could at least have negotiated some sort of concession on the part of China in return. But instead, the master of the deal just gave away this huge boon for absolutely nothing.

I remember when Republicans screamed about Obama agreeing to unfreeze a hundred billion in Iranian assets in return for their suspension of their nuclear program. This is a far bigger concession to a far more significant rival for absolutely nothing in return.

There is really no good argument to allow this—the position the Nvidia CEO has advanced, that this will promote dependency of China on US chips, is laughably and transparently wrong. And third parties are estimating that this will increase China’s total share of world compute by a factor of 5 or 6.

So, for a few tens of millions (guessing) in his pocket, Trump has agreed to sell out the future security of the country.