Andrew here. We’re digging deeper into President Trump’s tariff talks with China, which have been postponed for another 90 days. (Some critics are calling it another TACO — short for “Trump Always Chickens Out” — moment.) We’re also still thinking about the implications of the deal Trump reached in which Nvidia will pay 15 percent of revenue from A.I. chip sales to China. Will Beijing view this as state-sponsored capitalism? Will Nvidia — and by extension companies like Apple and Tesla — no longer be viewed as independent businesses but as arms of the U.S. government? If so, is the brand of capitalism that the U.S. has promoted for decades now in question? Let us know your thoughts.
We’re also watching the fight that Elon Musk started with Apple (and Sam Altman jumping into the debate). We dive into all of that, and more, below.
Chips, and a truce
President Trump has again postponed, by another 90 days, one of his biggest trade battles, removing for now a major worry hanging over the global economy.
But even as Trump urges China to buy more American products like soybeans, U.S. lawmakers and national security experts are concerned about what the president is willing to agree to — notably potentially giving Beijing greater access to high-end artificial intelligence process technology.
The latest: At the White House on Monday, Trump defended an agreement in which Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices could resume selling some powerful semiconductors to Chinese companies. In exchange, Washington will take a 15 percent cut of sales.
Trump justified the agreement by calling the Nvidia H20 processors at the heart of it “obsolete” — but left open the possibility that Nvidia could soon sell a stripped-down version of its top-end Blackwell chips to China as well.
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The post Gaming Out the Price of a Trump Trade Deal With China appeared first on New York Times.
