[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 214 (Thursday, December 18, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8884-S8885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Nvidia

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to express deep concern and 
frustration over President Trump's decision to approve the sale of 
advanced Nvidia H200 AI chips to the People's Republic of China.
  I appreciate the fact that my colleague Senator Coons is on the floor

[[Page S8885]]

because I will conclude with a discussion of a bipartisan bill that 
Senator Ricketts and Senator Coons have introduced in the Senate that, 
I think, is a very important piece of legislation.
  I am worried that the transfer of these chips will compromise U.S. 
security and enable the People's Republic of China to catch up in one 
area where the United States has a significant and a very qualitative 
advantage over the PRC.
  For decades, under administrations of both parties, the United States 
has adhered to a simple principle: We do not sell our most advanced 
security-critical technology to adversaries. That principle exists for 
a reason. Advanced semiconductors, like Nvidia's H200 chip, are not 
consumer gadgets. They are matters of national security. They are the 
foundation of the future of warfare. They are our edge--the United 
States' edge--in the development of the technologies of the future. 
Right now, that future is up for grabs. We protect our chips because 
they preserve America's advantage in space, cyberspace, and, 
importantly, as a nuclear deterrence.
  During President Trump's first term, the administration clearly 
understood this, and they expanded export controls on semiconductor 
technologies to China, placing strict controls on firms like Huawei. At 
the start of this administration, again, President Trump publicly 
embraced the longstanding policy: that export controls were treated as 
national security decisions, as they should be.
  But that consensus, apparently, has not lasted. It was challenged 
very aggressively by corporate interests, most notably by Nvidia's CEO, 
Jensen Huang, who is a frequent presence at the White House.
  The status quo was also challenged by President Trump's sort of self-
proclaimed AI and crypto czar, billionaire David Sacks, who argued that 
the United States should give sensitive articles to China in order to 
make China dependent upon American technology.
  That argument sounds clever, but it isn't. By that logic, should we 
sell China F-35 fighter jets, advanced missile systems, top-tier 
satellite technologies? Of course, we shouldn't. We don't preserve our 
leverage by handing our rivals the very tools that they need to close 
the gap they have with us. We preserve leverage by maintaining 
advantages that they can't replicate quickly or cheaply.
  And they are attempting to close this gap by cheating. The Justice 
Department just announced, within the last few days--within the last 
few days--a dismantling of a major China-linked AI smuggling network, 
Operation Gatekeeper, seizing more than $50 million worth of these 
Nvidia chips illegally exported to China. They are trying to steal this 
technology, reverse engineer, and take the intellectual property to 
eliminate this edge that we have.
  The administration initially claimed it would only permit the sales 
of inferior chips, such as the Nvidia H20, not the H200, which is 
hardware explicitly described as degraded and limited, but China 
declined. They waited, believing that President Trump would fold, and 
that is what happened. President Trump, within the last week, has 
announced that he plans to approve the sale of the H200, one of 
Nvidia's most powerful AI chips, second only to the very top of its 
product line.
  Let's be clear in what this chip is. The H200 is used to train and 
deploy frontier AI systems--systems that U.S. national security 
Agencies have long warned have numerous military and intelligence 
applications.
  Previous administrations, working with allies, imposed export 
controls precisely--precisely--because they worked. China fell behind. 
Even the CEO of China's leading AI firm has admitted publicly that the 
access to advanced chips is their biggest bottleneck.
  President Trump is now solving this problem for China. The 
administration claims that, in exchange--in exchange--the United States 
will receive a share of the revenue--25 percent of the sales is what we 
are being told--but that admission should alarm us. Decisions that were 
once made purely on our national security priorities are now apparently 
up for sale, and the administration's justification that this will 
somehow keep China hooked on U.S. technology doesn't withstand normal 
scrutiny.

  We have got decades of evidence that China basically steals foreign 
technology as fast as it can. They won't be hooked on these chips. They 
will take these chips, reverse engineer them, produce their own, and 
wipe out the edge that we now have with China in this critical defense 
technology.
  Now, in less than a week after President Trump's announcement, one of 
the deal's leading proponents, David Sacks, is already starting to 
backtrack on his theory that we should give these articles to China. 
Let's look at the facts surrounding the timing of this announcement.
  Nvidia's CEO has attended $1 million-a-plate fundraisers for the 
President. His company donated to build the President's ballroom, and 
now, after months of lobbying and contributions, Nvidia got what it 
wanted.
  I am very, very nervous that the President is bartering away this 
edge and may barter away other edges to those who are lobbying and 
contributing to him. This is a pattern that we have seen of 
transactional politics jeopardizing our security.
  China is reaping the rewards of this. They are already leading or are 
rapidly catching up in so many critical industries. Why would we give 
up an edge on this one?
  The American people are watching this play out, and they are 
particularly concerned about China, about China's advances, and about 
giving up the edge we have over China in this key area. That is why I 
have signed on, with many in this body--I think there are now 10 
cosponsors, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans--to 
Senators Ricketts and Coons' SAFE CHIPS Act, which would insist upon 
rigorous export controls over these chips, particularly as they might 
be transferred to China, the People's Republic of North Korea, Iran, 
and Russia. The number of bipartisan cosponsors of this legislation and 
of some similar legislation that is offered by other Members, by 
Senator Banks and Senator Collins, is growing.
  I urge my colleagues to get on board with this legislation and make 
sure that we don't harm our national security by transferring 
technologies of such incredible importance to our country.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.