Trump's 25% cut on Nvidia chips sold to China backfired — Beijing won't approve a single H200 purchase, costs Huang $30B
Quick Take
Trump's 25% cut on Nvidia chips to China led to a $30B loss for Huang as purchases were blocked.
Key Points
- Beijing disallowed all H200 chip purchases.
- Nvidia's Huang faces significant financial impact.
- Trade tensions continue to affect tech companies.
📖 Reader Mode
~2 min readPresident Donald Trump confirmed Friday what Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) investors have been quietly worrying about for months. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One after a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said Beijing has refused to approve purchases of Nvidia's H200 AI chips, and the reason is straightforward (1).
"They have a much higher level than H200. China needs it and yeah it came up," Trump said. "They choose not to buy because they want to develop their own. I think something could happen on that" (1).
Must Read
-
Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how
-
Robert Kiyosaki says this 1 asset will surge 400% in a year and begs investors not to miss this ‘explosion’
-
Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake — here’s how to fix it ASAP
Nvidia stock fell 4.4% Friday, giving back the all-time high it had touched a day earlier on news that the U.S. Commerce Department had approved the sale (1). For investors trying to read where Nvidia's China revenue is heading, this week was supposed to be a turning point. Instead, it looked like confirmation that the turning point already passed.
What actually happened
Earlier in the week, Reuters reported that the Commerce Department had cleared roughly 10 Chinese firms — including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com — to purchase up to 75,000 H200 chips each through approved distributors like Lenovo and Foxconn (2). At current pricing, that ceiling caps initial sales at roughly $15-$20 billion in revenue (3). KeyBanc analyst John Vinh has modeled total Chinese demand at around 1.5 million units annually, or about $30 billion in revenue, if the licensing framework expands (3).
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was added to the White House delegation at the last minute, joining Trump in Alaska en route to Beijing in what was widely read as an attempt to push a deal across the line (1).
It did not work. As of Friday, not a single H200 had shipped to a Chinese buyer, and Beijing had quietly steered domestic firms away from following through on the orders they placed earlier in the year (1).
Read More: Non-millionaires can now hoard property like the 1% — how to start with as little as $100
Why this is a bigger problem than it looks
Several pieces of evidence suggest China has made a strategic decision rather than a tactical pause.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Senate hearing last month that Chinese firms are "trying to keep their investment focused on their own domestic" suppliers including Huawei (4).
— Originally published at finance.yahoo.com
More from Yahoo Finance
See more →These Super Stocks Could Be the Biggest Winners in the AI Inference and Agentic AI Economy
The article highlights top stocks poised for growth in the AI inference and agentic AI sectors.

