WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader; Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Chris Coons (D-DE), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expressing “grave concern” over the Trump administration’s decision to reverse course and allow U.S. companies to sell certain advanced semiconductors to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The move, which reverses previous restrictions imposed due to national security risks, will permit the sale of Nvidia’s H20 chip, despite its demonstrated utility in advancing China’s AI capabilities. In the letter, the senators warn this decision marks “an abrupt departure from the administration’s position in April that the PRC’s continued access to these types of chips posed a serious national security risk,” and stands in direct contradiction to the administration’s own AI Action Plan. In the letter, the senators emphasize that “restricting access to leading-edge chips has been the defining barrier for the PRC’s efforts to achieve AI parity.”

The letter outlines how advanced semiconductors like the H20 play a critical role in China’s ability to train large-scale AI models and deploy them across global cloud infrastructure, boosting the capabilities and global reach of PRC firms like Alibaba, Tencent, and DeepSeek.

Wrote the senators, “Limiting the PRC’s access to advanced compute has been a focus of Congress: one with a strong bipartisan commitment across both chambers and both parties. The PRC’s development of advanced AI capabilities represents a clear risk to the United States’ national and economic security, and the administration’s willingness to trade away that security is extremely troubling. While chipsets like the H20 and MI308 have differing capabilities than the most advanced chips like the H100, they give the PRC capabilities that its domestically-developed chipsets cannot. The capabilities that chips like the H20 allow the PRC, demonstrated by the importance that the PRC places on access to them, should be the principal factor driving any decision to allow sales to China.”

The senators also condemned the administration’s decision-making process, criticizing the lack of congressional consultation and warning against the use of export controls as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations.

“Furthermore, we take issue that this administration is permitting adversaries access to technologies critical to national security as part of trade discussions without consultation or input from Congress. While the Executive Branch is entrusted with vital authorities to negotiate trade agreements and protect our national security, these authorities by no means should be treated as in tension, particularly when such an approach has the effect of jeopardizing both economic and national security goals. We shouldn’t be trading away key technological advantages as if they are concessions in a trade negotiation,” the senators concluded. “We urge you to swiftly reverse course on these ill-advised actions and protect American advantages across the compute stack.”

The full text of today’s letter to Secretary Lutnick is available here.

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