Nvidia and Apple are among the mega tech companies walking a fine line between trying to make money on product sales to China while also trying to please President Trump over his dunning-through-tariffs to bring manufacturing to the US while also endeavoring to satisfy national security requirements.
It has been a couple of interesting days. Nvidia late Monday announced it hopes to again start sales and deliveries of the Nvidia H20 GPU upon receiving US government assurances that licenses will be granted. Chinese firms are reportedly scrambling to buy up the H20s, according to Reuters. The move came shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with President Trump in Washington.
Nvidia earlier said security-related curbs on its advanced chips sold to China would cut its revenue by $15 billion. Not the biggest disaster for a company that recently broke the $4 trillion market capitalization mark, but Nvidia has made it very clear it would always follow the US export rules while still lusting quietly (or not so quietly in earnings calls) for the gold. Nvidia shares were up 4% on Tuesday after the H20 news came out. (Separately, AMD also said it would resume shipments of MI308 chips to China when licenses are approved.)
On Tuesday, Apple announced a $500 million deal to buy magnets from MP Materials over coming years while the two companies work on a new recycling facility in California. Magnets are everything in modern electronics, and Apple is trying to secure a steady supply for future iPhones and other devices. MP stock was boosted nearly 23% in afternoon trading.
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While the news from Nvidia is quite a bit different from Apple’s, it is interesting how both companies within two days characterized their moves as pro-American—not through an exuberant toady bow to the Commander in Chief, but instead using lofty rhetoric recognizing the US role in innovation and tech leadership for the world.
“We believe that every civil model should run on the US technology stack, encouraging nations worldwide to choose America,” CEO Huang said in a blog announcing the H20 news and his visits to meet President Trump and government and industry officials in Beijing. In a CCTV interview he added, “The Chinese market is massive, dynamic and highly innovative and it’s also home to many AI researchers. Therefore, it is indeed crucial for American companies to establish roots in the Chinese market.”
“American innovation drives everything we do at Apple, and we’re proud to deepen our involvement in the US economy,” Cook said of the MP Materials deal. Apple has been a big beneficiary of product sales to China, with 19% of iPhone sales there in 2024.
President Trump may deserve a modicum of credit for his bluster and art-of-the-deal negotiating. His allowance with Nvidia for H20 licenses (backed by a security finding by government experts) shows his willingness to listen to tech leaders at times. Maybe Trump’s up and down tariffs will also ultimately prevail. The tech world is clearly still trying to figure out Trump’s tactics on trade and China relations. Tech leaders and their speechwriters are measuring every rhetorical response carefully--as long as the “US” and “America” somehow get the ultimate credit.
Rhetoric aside, trade with China and tariffs are indeed complex, even for the experts. China has relaxed controls on rare earth exports and as the US has allowed chip design software services to restart in China. The relaxation of licenses on the H20, built for the Chinese market in 2023, came after it was banned in April, forcing Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in inventories.
For now at least, wisdom about the value of China AI and the broader tech market to the US has seemingly prevailed.