# Section 232 AI chip tariffs and 2026 export rules

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_chip_tariff_section_232
> Updated: 2026-10-15
> Fact-checked: 2026-10-15
> Categories: AI Compute, AI Hardware, AI Policy & Regulation
> License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - attribute to "AI Wiki (aiwiki.ai)"
> Cite as: AI Wiki. "Section 232 AI chip tariffs and 2026 export rules." aiwiki.ai, 15 Oct 2026. https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_chip_tariff_section_232
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), the free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Reuse freely with attribution.

Between 2025 and 2026 the United States built two separate legal machines around advanced [AI chips](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_chip), and public discussion routinely conflates them. One is a tariff on imports, imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 by presidential proclamation and collected at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The other is a set of [export controls](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/export_controls) on outbound sales, written by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the Export Administration Regulations and enforced through licenses. Different statute, different agency, opposite direction of trade. By 2026 the two were nevertheless drawn to the same technical thresholds, which is much of the reason they are confused.

The tariff arrived on January 15, 2026, at 25 percent ad valorem, under Proclamation 11002. Its covered category is drawn so narrowly that it describes individual accelerator products rather than a class of goods, and its exemptions cover almost every domestic use, including the [data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center)s that consume most imported AI silicon.[2][3] The export track ran from an April 2025 license requirement that functioned as a ban on [NVIDIA](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/nvidia)'s [H20](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/nvidia_h20), through a July 2025 reversal and a reported arrangement under which NVIDIA and [AMD](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/amd) would remit 15 percent of their China AI-chip revenue to the US government, to a January 2026 BIS rule that opened case-by-case licensing for the more capable [H200](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/nvidia_h200) and AMD's [Instinct MI325X](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/amd_instinct_mi325x).[6][8][10] As of mid-October 2026 the threatened second phase of the tariff had not been imposed and no proclamation had changed its rate, technical windows or exemptions.[4] NVIDIA and AMD had said in securities filings that China-bound chips shipped under the new licenses are subject to the 25 percent tariff on importation into the United States, where the licenses require them to be inspected, and H200 sales to Chinese buyers, which the responsible Commerce official called "very few" in July, came to less than 1 percent of NVIDIA's data center revenue in the quarter ended July 26, 2026.[17][33][34][35]

## Section 232 and the semiconductor investigation

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, codified at 19 U.S.C. 1862, lets the Secretary of Commerce investigate whether imports of an article threaten to impair national security. If the Secretary so finds, the President may adjust imports, most commonly through tariffs. The statute gives the Secretary up to 270 days to report to the President and the President 90 days after that to decide whether to act.

On April 1, 2025 Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick initiated an investigation into imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) and their derivative products. The public notice appeared in the Federal Register on April 16, 2025 at 90 FR 15950 under docket 250414-0066, with comments due May 7, 2025.[1] The declared scope was unusually wide, reaching "semiconductor substrates and bare wafers, legacy chips, leading-edge chips, microelectronics, and SME components" as well as downstream electronics that merely contain chips.[1] Nothing in that scope limits the inquiry to [AI accelerator](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_accelerator)s; the eventual action did.

Lutnick transmitted the report to the President on December 22, 2025, inside the statutory window.[2] The findings recited in the proclamation are broad. Commerce concluded that the United States consumes roughly a quarter of the world's semiconductors while fully manufacturing only about 10 percent of the chips it requires, that semiconductors are essential to each of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors identified by National Security Memorandum 22 of April 30, 2024, and that dependence on foreign supply chains is therefore both an economic and a military risk.[2] A separate finding singled out AI: chips that enable [artificial intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/artificial_intelligence) "are an important element of many data centers currently in use, such that the importation in current quantities and circumstances poses a threat to the national security, when such importation does not contribute to the buildout of the United States technology supply chain."[2]

The Secretary recommended a two-phase plan. Phase one would continue trade negotiations with foreign jurisdictions and impose immediately "a 25 percent ad valorem tariff on a very narrow category of semiconductors," with no tariff where the chips support the domestic technology supply chain. Phase two, after negotiations concluded, would bring "broader tariffs on semiconductors, at a rate of duty that is significant," paired with a tariff offset program giving preferential treatment to firms investing in US semiconductor production.[2]

## The 100 percent threat and the negotiated ceilings

The loudest moment in the sequence produced no legal instrument at all. On August 6, 2025, at a White House event alongside Apple's announcement of additional US investment, President Trump said: "We'll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100 percent on chips and semiconductors." He immediately attached an exemption: "But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge," extending it to firms still under construction, and warning that a company which promised to build and did not would find that the duty "accumulates and we charge you at a later date."[11] The remark was verbal. No 100 percent semiconductor tariff was ever proclaimed, and no general threshold for qualifying investment was published, although Lutnick repeated the threat for memory makers in January 2026: "Everyone who wants to build memory has two choices: They can pay a 100% tariff, or they can build in America."[44] Firms with announced US fabrication commitments, among them [Intel](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/intel), [Micron](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/micron_technology), [TSMC](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/tsmc) and [Samsung](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/samsung), were the presumed beneficiaries, and [Apple](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/apple) supplied the occasion.[11]

The threat also ran into trade negotiations. In the August 21, 2025 United States-European Union framework statement, the United States said it "intends to promptly ensure" that the combined most-favored-nation and Section 232 tariff on EU semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and lumber "does not exceed 15%," which, if honored, rules out a 100 percent levy on European chips.[12][41] The same package recorded the EU's intention to buy at least $40 billion of US AI chips, and $750 billion of US energy products through 2028.[12] The ceiling is a statement of intent rather than a term of the chip tariff: Proclamation 11002 contains no country-specific rates, and its annex applies the duty to semiconductor articles "of all countries."[3] Switzerland and Liechtenstein received the same 15 percent formulation for semiconductors in November 2025.[42] Japan's September 2025 joint statement says the United States intends to apply to Japanese semiconductors "a Section 232 tariff rate no greater than that applied to goods of any other country,"[40] and Korea's November 2025 joint fact sheet promises chip terms "no less favorable than terms that may be offered in a future agreement covering a volume of semiconductor trade at least as large as Korea's."[39]

Taiwan's deal was the most specific. On January 15, 2026, the day the chip tariff took effect, the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office signed an investment memorandum under which Taiwanese semiconductor and technology companies would make $250 billion of new direct investment in the United States, with Taiwan providing credit guarantees for another $250 billion. Commerce's fact sheet said: "Future Section 232 duties applied to Taiwanese semiconductors will reward Taiwanese semiconductor producers that invest in the United States." Taiwanese companies building new US chip capacity could import up to 2.5 times that planned capacity free of Section 232 duties during construction, with "a lower preferential Section 232 rate for above-quota imports," and 1.5 times their new US capacity once the projects were complete.[37] The fact sheet gave no number for the preferential rate; USTR later described the memorandum as confirming "preferential treatment" for Taiwan in the semiconductor investigation.[38] The tariff terms implemented in the Federal Register on May 28, 2026 covered auto parts, wood products and aircraft components rather than chips, and the separate reciprocal trade agreement signed on February 12, 2026 had not entered into force when that notice was published.[22] In July 2026 the White House and Commerce attributed a further $100 billion commitment from TSMC, bringing its planned US investment to $265 billion, to the January deal.[43]

These commitments matter for phase two: a broad semiconductor tariff would run into rates the United States has said it intends to apply to several of the largest supplying jurisdictions. The polysilicon proclamation of August 2026 shows the pattern, capping its new duty at 15 percent all-in for products of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the European Union.[32]

## Proclamation 11002 and the 25 percent tariff

President Trump signed Proclamation 11002, "Adjusting Imports of Semiconductors, Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment, and Their Derivative Products Into the United States," on January 14, 2026. It was published on January 20, 2026 at 91 FR 2443.[2] CBP issued implementing guidance the same evening the proclamation was signed, as CSMS #67400472.[5]

Clause 3 imposes a 25 percent ad valorem duty on Covered Products, effective for goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption "on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on January 15, 2026," to continue "unless such action is expressly reduced, modified, or terminated."[2] The duty is additional to any other duties otherwise applicable, and it applies on top of preferential rates under free trade agreements and preference programs.[3]

### Covered products and the technical windows

The Annex inserts a new U.S. note 39 into subchapter III of chapter 99 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and creates nine new headings, 9903.79.01 through 9903.79.09.[3][4] The covered universe is not all semiconductors and not bare integrated circuits. It is limited to goods classifiable in three HTS subheadings:

- 8471.50 (processing units for automatic data processing machines)
- 8471.80 (other units of automatic data processing machines)
- 8473.30 (parts and accessories of automatic data processing machines)

Within those subheadings, an import is a "semiconductor article" only if it is "a logic integrated circuit, or an article that contains a logic integrated circuit" meeting one of two performance windows:[3]

| Window | Total processing performance (TPP) | Total DRAM bandwidth |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | greater than 14,000 and less than 17,500 | greater than 4,500 GB/s and less than 5,000 GB/s |
| 2 | greater than 20,800 and less than 21,100 | greater than 5,800 GB/s and less than 6,200 GB/s |

The note adopts the same TPP formula BIS uses in its export controls: TPP equals 2 times "MacTOPS" times the bit length of the operation, aggregated over all processing units on the integrated circuit, calculated on dense rather than sparse matrix performance, and using the highest value the manufacturer claims.[3] "Total DRAM bandwidth" is the aggregate bandwidth between the chip and DRAM, including copackaged [high bandwidth memory](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/high_bandwidth_memory) and non-copackaged GDDR, but excluding memory reached remotely over an interconnect.[3]

Those are not broad bands. They are narrow windows with both a floor and a ceiling, which is why the measure covers individual products rather than a product class. NVIDIA lists the H200 SXM at 141 GB of memory and 4.8 TB/s of bandwidth, or 4,800 GB/s, which falls inside window 1.[23] AMD lists the Instinct MI325X at 256 GB of HBM3E and 6 TB/s, with 2,614.9 teraflops of dense FP8 compute, which under the note's formula gives a TPP of about 20,900 and places it inside window 2.[29] Analysts at the Center for a New American Security described the proclamation as "establishing a 25 percent import tariff on H200s and AMD's MI325X", meaning the H200 and MI325X pair that BIS names in the export rule issued the previous day.[16] Parts faster than window 2, including [NVIDIA Blackwell](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/nvidia_blackwell) accelerators, and parts slower than window 1 are both outside the tariff.

### Exemptions

Only heading 9903.79.01 carries the 25 percent duty. The other eight headings collect the ordinary rate.

| Heading | Scope | Duty |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 9903.79.01 | Semiconductor articles meeting the note 39(b) thresholds | Applicable subheading rate plus 25 percent |
| 9903.79.02 | Goods of 8471.50, 8471.80 or 8473.30 that do not meet the thresholds | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.03 | For use in U.S. [data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center)s | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.04 | For repairs or replacement in the United States | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.05 | For research and development in the United States | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.06 | For use by startups in the United States | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.07 | For non-data-center consumer electronics applications | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.08 | For non-data-center civil industrial applications | Applicable subheading rate |
| 9903.79.09 | For United States public sector applications | Applicable subheading rate |

Three of the definitions do real work. A "U.S. data center" is defined as "a facility that requires greater than 100 megawatts (MW) of new load dedicated to AI inference, training, simulation, or synthetic data generation," which restricts the largest exemption to hyperscale AI builds rather than any server hall.[3] A "startup" is an "emerging growth company" as defined at 15 U.S.C. 77b(a)(19), the securities-law term, not a colloquial one.[3] The consumer-electronics heading is explicitly enumerated to include "gaming, personal computing, professional visualization, workstation applications, and automotive applications," and the civil-industrial heading to include "factory robotics and industrial machinery."[3] The proclamation also lets the Secretary extend relief to "other uses that the Secretary determines contribute to the strengthening of the United States technology supply chain."[2]

Because the exemptions are defined by end use rather than by importer, they are administered through the entry classification itself, and each requires the importer to enter under the corresponding 9903.79.0x heading.[4][5]

### Stacking, drawback and zones

Note 39 removes the covered goods from most other tariff stacks. As first issued, it provided that articles entered under 9903.79.01 are not subject to the vehicle, vehicle-parts, medium- and heavy-duty truck, copper, aluminum, derivative aluminum, iron and steel, or derivative iron and steel Section 232 headings, nor to the Canada and Mexico headings 9903.01.10 and 9903.01.01, nor to headings 9903.01.24 through 9903.01.76 and 9903.02.01 through 9903.02.71.[3] Clause 5 of the proclamation states the same result at the level of executive orders: covered products are not subject to the reciprocal tariffs of Executive Order 14257 of April 2, 2025, or to Executive Orders 14193 and 14194 of February 1, 2025 on the northern and southern borders.[2] Where a covered product would otherwise fall under two Section 232 proclamations, this one governs.[2]

Later actions kept the chip duty outside newer stacks. Proclamation 11021 of April 2, 2026 replaced the separate metals items in note 39(a) with a single reference to the restructured steel, aluminum and copper headings, and the May 28, 2026 Taiwan notice added Taiwanese auto-parts headings to the list.[51][22] The IEEPA tariffs named in clause 5 ended after the Supreme Court held on February 20, 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, that IEEPA "does not authorize the President to impose tariffs," and Executive Order 14389 of the same day terminated them.[47][48] The temporary 10 percent surcharge imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 from February 24 to July 24, 2026 did "not apply in addition to tariffs imposed under section 232," and the Section 301 tariffs on 60 economies that took effect on July 24, 2026 exempt "semiconductor articles provided for in heading 9903.79.01."[49][50]

No drawback is available on the duty. Goods admitted to a US foreign trade zone on or after the effective date must be admitted as privileged foreign status unless they qualify as domestic status, which prevents zone processing from reclassifying the duty away.[2]

### Phase two

Phase two was still prospective in mid-October 2026. Clause 1 directs the Secretary and the United States Trade Representative to pursue agreements under 19 U.S.C. 1862(c)(3)(A)(i) and says that, depending on the outcome, the President "may consider imposing significant tariffs on imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products, as well as an accompanying tariff offset program to incentivize domestic manufacturing."[2] Clause 2 required a negotiation update within 90 days, that is, by April 14, 2026. Paragraph 12 notes that if an agreement is not entered into within 180 days of the proclamation (by July 13, 2026), is not carried out, or proves ineffective, the President may take further action.[2] Clause 9 required the Secretary, by July 1, 2026, to provide "an update on the market for semiconductors that are used in United States data centers, so that the President may determine whether it is appropriate to modify the tariff imposed in this proclamation."[2]

As of October 16, 2026 no proclamation broadening the semiconductor tariff, and no notice changing its rate, windows or exemptions, had been published in the Federal Register, and the tariff schedule in force from October 9, 2026 still carried headings 9903.79.01 through 9903.79.09 unchanged.[4] Neither the 90-day negotiation update nor the July 1 data-center update had been made public, and the 180-day mark passed without any announced further action. Officials kept describing a broader action without setting a date. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on May 22, 2026 that "there's not an immediate tariff coming in place tomorrow or next week."[45] In late August, Politico reported that the administration was weighing duties on goods made with chips, such as laptops, gaming consoles and data-center servers, possibly with separate rates and quotas for individual countries; on September 2 Lutnick told CNBC that the policy would be "if you build here, you don't pay, but if you don't build here, expect to pay to enter the greatest market in the world," and confirmed that he favored tying tariff relief to investment in US chip manufacturing.[46] The 25 percent narrow tariff remained the only Section 232 duty on semiconductors in force, although a separate Section 232 action on polysilicon, the base material for chips, is due to take effect in December 2026 (see Adjacent measures).[32]

## The export-control track: H20, H200 and the revenue share

Export controls are a separate instrument with a separate history. BIS has restricted advanced computing chips to China and Macau since October 2022. An interim final rule effective November 17, 2023 replaced the earlier "bits x TOPS" metric in ECCN 3A090 with total processing performance and a performance-density criterion, and broadened the country scope to Country Group D:5.[7] Those thresholds are the reason vendors designed China-specific parts in the first place.

### The H20 license requirement

NVIDIA built the H20 to sit below the 2023 thresholds. In its results for the quarter ended April 27, 2025 the company disclosed: "On April 9, 2025, NVIDIA was informed by the U.S. government that a license is required for exports of its H20 products into the China market. As a result of these new requirements, NVIDIA incurred a $4.5 billion charge in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 associated with H20 excess inventory and purchase obligations as the demand for H20 diminished."[8] The company also reported $4.6 billion of H20 revenue recognized before the restriction and a further $2.5 billion it could not ship.[8] AMD faced a parallel restriction on its MI308.[25] In practice the license requirement functioned as a ban.

### Reversal and the reported 15 percent

The policy reversed within three months. NVIDIA chief executive [Jensen Huang](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/jensen_huang) lobbied to reopen the market, and in July 2025 the administration signaled that H20 licenses would be granted. Licenses were issued in the first week of August 2025, and AMD won comparable clearance for the MI308.[24] On August 10, 2025 the New York Times and the Financial Times reported that both firms had agreed to remit 15 percent of the revenue from those China sales to the US government, an arrangement The Register described as covering "15 percent of H20 and MI308 revenues."[24][25] Against NVIDIA's reported $10.5 billion of lost China sales in the first half of 2025 and AMD's $800 million shortfall in one quarter, the arrangement was estimated to be worth about $900 million a quarter to Washington.[24]

The arrangement was never codified. In its quarterly filing of August 27, 2025 NVIDIA disclosed that US officials expected 15 percent of the revenue from licensed H20 sales and warned that "any request for a percentage of the revenue by the USG may subject us to litigation, increase our costs, and harm our competitive position and benefit competitors that are not subject to such arrangements." Chief financial officer Colette Kress said at the time that "to date, the USG has not published a regulation codifying such a requirement," and that although a select number of Chinese customers had received licenses, the company had made no H20 sales under them.[10] A year later the position was unchanged: AMD's quarterly report of August 2026 said officials had "expressed an expectation" of 15 percent of licensed MI308 revenue but that "to date, the U.S. government has not published a regulation establishing such requirement."[35] The legal objections are structural. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution provides that no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state, and the Export Control Reform Act of 2018, which is the statutory basis for BIS licensing, does not provide for charging exporters a share of revenue in return for a license; it states that "no fee may be charged in connection with the submission, processing, or consideration of any application for a license."[36] Whether a payment characterized as voluntary escapes the Export Clause, and who would have standing to litigate it, were both untested as of October 2026 (see Reception).

### Beijing's counter-pressure

The Chinese state then discouraged the purchases the US had just permitted. In August 2025, according to Bloomberg, Chinese authorities wrote to firms advising against using H20 accelerators for work involving "government or national security-related work"; NVIDIA replied that "the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure."[25] In September 2025 the Cyberspace Administration of China ordered [Alibaba](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/alibaba), [ByteDance](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/bytedance) and others to suspend testing and cancel orders for NVIDIA's RTX Pro 6000D, with domestic alternatives including [Huawei](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/huawei)'s [Ascend](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/huawei_ascend) 910C and CloudMatrix 384 cited as the reason a ban was now affordable.[26] In the same month, on September 15, China's State Administration for Market Regulation said a preliminary investigation had found NVIDIA in violation of the Anti-Monopoly Law and of the conditions attached to its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox, and escalated the case to a full investigation.[27] The effect was that a legal pathway existed while commerce did not flow. Under the trade truce announced on November 1, 2025, the White House said China would "terminate its various investigations targeting U.S. companies in the semiconductor supply chain, including its antitrust, anti-monopoly, and anti-dumping investigations."[52]

### The H200 opening

On December 8, 2025, in a Truth Social post reported the following day, Trump wrote that he had "informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security," and added that "$25% will be paid to the United States of America." He said the permission covered the H200 only, not Blackwell or the forthcoming Rubin generation, and indicated the approach would extend to AMD, Intel and other US firms.[13]

BIS gave the decision regulatory form in a final rule filed on January 13, 2026 and published, effective the same day, on January 15, 2026 at 91 FR 1684 (RIN 0694-AK43, docket 260112-0028).[6] The rule changed the license review policy for exports to end users in China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review for advanced computing commodities with a TPP below 21,000 and a "total DRAM bandwidth" below 6,500 GB/s, "such as the NVIDIA H200 or AMD MI325X."[6] Presumption of denial was retained for reexports and in-country transfers to Macau and Country Group D:5, and for exports to entities headquartered, or whose parent is headquartered, in those destinations.[6]

Case-by-case review is available only if the applicant provides nine certifications, set out in a new paragraph (dd) of supplement no. 2 to part 748:[6]

| Requirement | Substance |
| --- | --- |
| Performance disclosure | TPP, total DRAM bandwidth, interconnect bandwidth, copackaged DRAM capacity and peak power at maximum TPP, plus units already shipped to US customers and any specification changes since launch |
| US supply and foundry capacity | Evidence that the export will not delay any existing or new US order for the exporter's advanced-node integrated circuits, and that global foundry capacity for similar or more advanced chips for US end users will not be diverted |
| Volume ceiling | Evidence that "the aggregate TPP of 'advanced-node integrate circuits' exported to China or Macau will be no more than 50 percent of the aggregate TPP shipped to customers in the United States," measured cumulatively from first US commercial shipment |
| End-use screening | Confirmation the transaction is not for military, military-intelligence, nuclear, missile, or chemical and biological weapons end uses or end users |
| Know Your Customer | A description from the ultimate consignee of procedures preventing unauthorized remote access |
| Remote end users | A list of Infrastructure-as-a-Service remote end users in Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Macau, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela |
| IaaS conditions | Undertakings not to transfer model weights trained on the chips to undisclosed end users and not to give prohibited parties remote access to trained algorithms |
| Physical security | A description of the physical security at the ultimate consignee |
| Third-party testing | Every shipment reviewed before export by a qualified US-headquartered independent testing lab, testing conducted in US customs territory |

The testing-lab qualification is a live control rather than a formality: BIS "may revoke the qualification of any third-party testing lab at any time and for any reason," and revocation suspends the case-by-case policy for every exporter using that lab until a new one is named.[6] BIS also modified section 744.23 so that the same case-by-case standard applies under the supercomputer and advanced-node end-use controls.[6]

The rule contains no revenue-share provision of any kind. The 25 percent figure comes from the President's announcement, not from the regulation, and it is not collected as a payment at all. Because the Section 232 windows bracket exactly the H200 and MI325X, and because every exemption in note 39 is defined by a United States end use, a chip imported into the United States for onward export to China can claim no exemption and bears the 25 percent duty. CNAS analysts, writing the day after both instruments took effect, said the combination "effectively imposes a 25 percent export fee on these chips to China" alongside the licensing rule.[16] The Congressional Research Service reported that the White House had explained the arrangement the same way: the chips would undergo a "security review" in the United States, and the 25 percent would be collected as a tariff when they were imported from fabrication sites in Taiwan.[36] The chipmakers' filings confirm it. AMD said in August 2026 that MI325 products shipped to China under its licenses must "first undergo an inspection process in the United States" and "will be subject to a 25% tariff upon importation into the United States for the inspection," and NVIDIA said it had been "unable to pass along any of the tariff" to its customers.[35][34] The announced 25 percent is therefore a condition of the H200 opening whose legal vehicle is the import tariff, while the earlier 15 percent on the H20 and MI308 remains a reported but never codified arrangement.

### What has actually shipped

Movement was slow. In January 2026 NVIDIA was reported to be demanding advance payment for Chinese H200 orders, which the company denied, saying "we do not require upfront payment, and would never require customers to pay for products that they do not receive."[14] On March 17, 2026 Huang said "we've been licensed for many customers in China for H200," that purchase orders had arrived, and that NVIDIA was restarting manufacturing of the part, adding that the situation was "different from what it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago."[15]

Financial results told a flatter story. NVIDIA's first quarter of fiscal 2027, ended April 26, 2026 and reported on May 20, 2026, produced record revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85 percent year on year, with data center revenue of $75.2 billion. The outlook for the following quarter was $91.0 billion plus or minus 2 percent, and the company stated that it "is not assuming any Data Center compute revenue from China in its outlook."[9] Although the US government had approved H200 licenses for China-based customers, chief financial officer Colette Kress said the company had "yet to generate any revenue" from them, and NVIDIA shipped no Hopper products to China in the quarter.[30]

In May 2026 Commerce cleared roughly ten Chinese firms to buy the H200, reportedly including Alibaba, [Tencent](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/tencent) and ByteDance, with no deliveries at that point.[17] The first official confirmation of movement came on July 14, 2026, when Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that shipments had begun but the number was "very few," and that "there have been minimal exports of any H200s to China so far." Reuters reported the same day that a unit of ZTE and two other Chinese firms were among the latest to receive US approval to buy advanced AI chips from NVIDIA and AMD.[17]

Deliveries then began in small volumes. The Financial Times reported in August 2026 that ByteDance and Tencent had each received about 10,000 H200s in recent weeks, against US clearance for up to 100,000 each, and that Beijing wanted the hardware kept outside mainland China to support domestic chipmakers; Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report.[53] NVIDIA's second quarter of fiscal 2027, ended July 26, 2026 and reported on August 26, 2026, brought revenue of $96.2 billion and data center revenue of $89.0 billion.[31] H200 sales to Chinese buyers in the quarter came to less than 1 percent of data center revenue, Bloomberg reported, and NVIDIA's quarterly report said it had made a "fraction of the allowed shipments."[33][34] The outlook for the third quarter, $108.0 billion plus or minus 2 percent, again assumed no data center compute revenue from China.[31] AMD, which received licenses for its MI325 in February 2026, said in August that it did not "yet know whether any imports of MI325 products will be allowed into China."[35]

## How the two instruments fit together

Read side by side, the tariff and the export rule are calibrated to each other.

- The export rule sets a ceiling: TPP below 21,000 and total DRAM bandwidth below 6,500 GB/s may be licensed case by case for China and Macau.[6]
- The tariff sets two narrow windows, the first well inside that ceiling and the second straddling it at 20,800 to 21,100, each bracketing a single shipping product.[3]
- The tariff's product coverage is 8471.50, 8471.80 and 8473.30, which are assembled units and boards, not the bare integrated circuits of heading 8542.[3] By contrast, the Section 301 action on Chinese chips reaches 8541 and 8542 goods.[18]
- Every tariff exemption is defined by a United States end use, so a chip routed through the United States for export to China qualifies for none of them.[3]

The consequence is that the same 25 percent number appears on both tracks, and conflating them is easy. They remain legally distinct: the tariff is collected by CBP from the importer of record under 19 U.S.C. 1862, while the license conditions are enforced by BIS against the exporter under the Export Administration Regulations, with different penalties, different appeal routes and different beneficiaries.

## Adjacent measures

Several other instruments run alongside and are frequently mistaken for parts of the same action.

**Section 301 on Chinese semiconductors.** USTR initiated a Section 301 investigation into China's targeting of the semiconductor industry for dominance on December 23, 2024. On December 23, 2025 the Trade Representative determined the conduct actionable and imposed a tariff action, published at 90 FR 60848 on December 29, 2025, at an initial rate of 0 percent, "increasing in 18 months on June 23, 2027, to a rate to be announced not fewer than 30 days prior to that date."[18] The covered lines include high-purity silicon (2804.61), doped chemical elements and compounds (3818.00), most of heading 8541 (all but light-emitting diodes, photovoltaic cells and piezoelectric crystals) and all of heading 8542. The new rate will be additional to the existing 50 percent Section 301 tariff on semiconductors from China imposed under the earlier forced-technology-transfer investigation.[18] The action is therefore a scheduled future tariff rather than a present one, and it targets [China's semiconductor industry](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/china_semiconductor_industry) rather than AI accelerators.

**Section 232 on polysilicon.** On August 6, 2026 Trump signed Proclamation 11052, a separate Section 232 action on polysilicon and its derivatives that cites Proclamation 11002 and calls polysilicon "the base material for semiconductors." From December 4, 2026 it sets minimum import prices of $21 per kilogram for polysilicon, $100 per kilogram for ingots and wafers, $0.22 per watt for solar cells and $0.38 per watt for modules, and adds a 15 percent duty on ingots and listed derivatives, capped at 15 percent all-in for products of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the European Union and set at 10 percent for the United Kingdom. Companies with approved plans to build or expand US polysilicon, ingot, wafer or cell plants, with construction starting by January 20, 2029, may import production equipment and covered products free of the duties in volumes tied to their new investment, a mechanism the proclamation calls "tariff offsets or other tariff incentives."[32]

**Federal procurement.** Section 5949 of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (Public Law 117-263, enacted December 23, 2022) prohibits executive agencies from procuring or obtaining products or services containing semiconductors designed, produced or provided by [SMIC](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/smic), [ChangXin Memory Technologies](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/cxmt) or [Yangtze Memory Technologies](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ymtc), or their subsidiaries and affiliates, along with entities determined to be owned or controlled by a foreign country of concern. The prohibition takes effect December 23, 2027. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued an advance notice in May 2024 and a proposed rule on February 17, 2026, with comments due April 20, 2026; no final rule had been published by mid-October 2026.[20][58]

**Entity listing and end-user programs.** BIS revoked Validated End-User authorizations for Intel Semiconductor (Dalian), Samsung China Semiconductor and [SK hynix](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/sk_hynix) Semiconductor (China) effective December 31, 2025, ending general authorization for those China fabs and returning them to individual licensing.[19] The [Entity List](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/entity_list) remains the principal instrument for named-party restrictions and is separate from both the tariff and the general licensing policy. Under the November 2025 truce the United States suspended for one year, from November 10, 2025, the BIS rule extending end-user controls to affiliates of listed entities.[52] At the July 14, 2026 hearing, Representative Gregory Meeks criticized Commerce for not adding any Chinese companies to the list since October 2025, the longest such gap in more than a decade, Reuters reported.[17] On May 31, 2026 BIS issued guidance that a license is still required to export advanced computing items to entities headquartered in Country Group D:5 or Macau, or whose ultimate parent is, even when the entity is located elsewhere, a requirement dating from November 2023.[54]

**Enforcement.** In testimony on July 14, 2026 Kessler reported that BIS monetary penalties rose from $16 million in 2024 to $324 million in 2025, an increase of more than eighteen times, and that 2026 penalties had already doubled the 2025 figure. He cited a $252 million settlement with [Applied Materials](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/applied_materials) over transshipment of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, a $95 million penalty against Cadence Design Systems over export of semiconductor design software, and $36 million in penalties in a Bosch matter, along with an indictment of three individuals over a scheme to divert servers containing advanced semiconductors through Southeast Asia.[17] That indictment, unsealed on March 19, 2026 after an investigation in which BIS took part, charged a co-founder of server maker Super Micro Computer, a manager in its Taiwan office and an outside broker with diverting servers containing restricted AI chips to China through a Southeast Asian company that bought about $2.5 billion of servers in 2024 and 2025; the broker, Ting-Wei Sun, pleaded guilty in October 2026, while the co-founder pleaded not guilty.[55][56] On October 1, 2026 the Justice Department announced the arrest of the owner of a California computer company charged with smuggling more than $300 million of GPU servers to China through Malaysia and Singapore.[57]

## Industry impact

On the import side the tariff's practical reach in its first phase is narrow by design. The exemption headings are written around the end uses that account for most of the demand: hyperscale AI data centers, research, consumer electronics, industrial equipment and public-sector systems. What is left inside heading 9903.79.01 is chiefly imports that serve none of those, which includes chips brought in for onward export. The binding limit on the largest exemption is the definition of a qualifying data center, which requires more than 100 MW of new load dedicated to AI work, so smaller colocation and enterprise deployments cannot use heading 9903.79.03 and must find another exemption or pay.[3]

The larger commercial question is phase two. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated in June 2026 that a 25 percent tariff applied broadly to semiconductors would reduce US GDP growth by 0.2 percent in the first year, more than $58 billion, and cost $1.6 trillion cumulatively over ten years, with a 50 percent tariff costing more than $122 billion in the first year and $4.4 trillion over a decade. The authors, Meghan Ostertag and Trelysa Long, argued that higher chip costs would raise prices for vehicles and electronics and impede [AI infrastructure](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_infrastructure) investment, and recommended removing the existing tariffs rather than expanding them.[21] Those are model-based projections from a technology policy think tank, not measured outcomes.

On the export side the commercial result through the first half of 2026 was near zero and by October 2026 was still small. NVIDIA shipped no Hopper products to China in the quarter ended April 26, 2026, its H200 sales to China in the following quarter were less than 1 percent of data center revenue, and its outlooks of May and August 2026 both excluded China data center compute revenue.[9][30][31][33] Licenses existed, purchase orders existed, manufacturing had restarted, and shipments had begun by July 2026, but at volumes the responsible official called minimal.[15][17]

The policy backdrop on the Chinese side is a domestic substitution effort that predates both instruments and that the export controls accelerated. The principal domestic alternatives are Huawei's Ascend accelerator line, foundry capacity at SMIC and [Hua Hong Grace Semiconductor](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/hua_hong_semiconductor), memory from CXMT and YMTC, and equipment from [NAURA](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/naura), [AMEC](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/amec) and [SiCarrier](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/sicarrier). Every US measure described here is calibrated against the assumption that restricting supply slows Chinese AI capability faster than it accelerates Chinese self-sufficiency, and that assumption is the central contested question in the debate.

## Reception

Reception split along predictable lines and was sharpest on the revenue share, which had no clear precedent: the federal government does not ordinarily take a percentage of a company's export revenue. NVIDIA treated the arrangement as a legal exposure rather than defending it, telling investors that any such request "may subject us to litigation, increase our costs, and harm our competitive position," and noting that no regulation codified the requirement.[10] The constitutional objection is the Export Clause; the statutory one is that the Export Control Reform Act bars charging fees in connection with a license. In March 2026 the Congressional Research Service called it "debatable" whether Section 232 gives the President authority for the 25 percent tariff, said there "appear to be no judicial decisions interpreting ECRA's fee prohibition," and found it "uncertain" who would have standing to sue; the only related suit it identified, filed in Delaware in January 2026 by two NVIDIA shareholders, sought access to company records rather than to nullify the arrangement.[36] As of October 2026 neither objection had been tested in court.

National-security analysts questioned the H200 opening on its merits. Janet Egan and James Sanders of the Center for a New American Security wrote on January 16, 2026 that the policy could transfer up to 890,000 H200-equivalent chips to China, roughly twice what Chinese fabs were expected to produce that year, and comparable to the compute [OpenAI](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/openai) had deployed as of October 2025. They argued the safeguards were weak in practice, that certifications against military end users are difficult to enforce against military-civil fusion and shell companies, and that the requirement not to delay US orders was "impossible to credibly meet" given advanced-node capacity constraints. They also warned the rule set a precedent for further relaxations.[16]

Supporters inside the administration framed the package as leverage rather than concession. Bloomberg reported in December 2025 that the H200 decision was part of an effort backed by White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks to challenge Chinese champions such as Huawei by bringing American competition to their home market, though within days Sacks said of Beijing, "They're rejecting our chips."[28] Kessler's July 2026 testimony made the industrial-policy case explicitly, describing Section 232 as producing "a manufacturing renaissance," noting more than a dozen BIS investigations and tariffs already imposed on steel, aluminum, copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, autos, trucks and lumber, and requesting an additional $20 million for the Section 232 program and a 147 percent increase for enforcement, from $122 million to $301 million, taking the enforcement unit from 299 to 669 positions.[17]

Beijing's own position was the mirror image: it discouraged purchases on security grounds and promoted domestic parts, so the sales Washington had licensed met resistance in China.[25][26][53] As of mid-October 2026 the combined picture was a tariff in force but narrow, a second phase announced but not imposed, an export channel open but barely used, and a payment condition announced by the President that appears nowhere in the export rule but is collected through the import tariff. See also [AI regulation](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/ai_regulation) and the [CHIPS and Science Act](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/chips_act).

## Timeline of actions

| Date | Action | Status as of October 2026 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| December 23, 2022 | Section 5949 of the FY2023 NDAA enacted, barring federal procurement of SMIC, CXMT and YMTC semiconductors[20] | Takes effect December 23, 2027 |
| November 17, 2023 | BIS advanced computing rule effective; TPP replaces bits times TOPS in ECCN 3A090, scope broadened to Country Group D:5[7] | Superseded in part by later rules |
| December 23, 2024 | USTR initiates Section 301 investigation into China's semiconductor practices[18] | Determination made December 2025 |
| April 1, 2025 | Commerce initiates Section 232 investigation into semiconductors, SME and derivatives[1] | Report delivered December 2025 |
| April 9, 2025 | NVIDIA informed that H20 exports to China require a license; $4.5 billion charge recorded for the quarter[8] | Superseded by July 2025 reversal |
| April 16, 2025 | Section 232 comment notice published, 90 FR 15950; comments due May 7, 2025[1] | Completed |
| July to August 2025 | Administration reverses course; H20 and MI308 licenses issued in the first week of August[24] | AMD began MI308 shipments at the end of 2025[35] |
| August 6, 2025 | Trump floats "approximately 100 percent" chip tariff with an exemption for US builders[11] | Never formalized |
| August 10, 2025 | Reported that NVIDIA and AMD will remit 15 percent of China AI-chip revenue for the licenses[24][25] | Never codified |
| August 21, 2025 | US-EU framework statement says the US intends to cap Section 232 tariffs on EU semiconductors at 15 percent all-in[12][41] | Not applied to the 25 percent chip tariff |
| August 27, 2025 | NVIDIA discloses the expected 15 percent share and says no regulation codifies it[10] | Never codified |
| September 2, 2025 | BIS revokes Validated End-User authorizations for Intel Dalian, Samsung China and [SK hynix](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/sk_hynix) China, effective December 31, 2025[19] | In force |
| September 2025 | Market regulator announces a preliminary anti-monopoly finding against NVIDIA (September 15); Cyberspace Administration of China orders cancellation of NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000D orders[26][27] | China pledged in November 2025 to end its chip-sector investigations of US companies[52]; purchase curbs persisted into 2026[53] |
| November 1, 2025 | US-China truce: China to end its investigations of US semiconductor companies; US suspends the BIS affiliates rule for one year from November 10[52] | Suspension set for one year |
| December 8, 2025 | Trump announces H200 sales to approved Chinese customers with "$25% will be paid to the United States of America"[13] | Implemented January 2026 |
| December 22, 2025 | Lutnick transmits the Section 232 report to the President[2] | Completed |
| December 23, 2025 | USTR Section 301 semiconductor action takes effect at 0 percent[18] | Rises June 23, 2027 |
| January 14, 2026 | Proclamation 11002 signed; CBP issues CSMS #67400472[2][5] | In force |
| January 15, 2026 | 25 percent tariff effective 12:01 a.m. EST; BIS case-by-case rule effective, 91 FR 1684[2][6] | Both in force |
| January 15, 2026 | US-Taiwan investment memorandum signed: $250 billion of direct investment and Section 232 chip import allowances tied to planned US capacity[37] | Chip terms await phase two |
| February 12, 2026 | US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade signed[22] | Not in force as of May 2026 |
| February 17, 2026 | FAR Council proposes the rule implementing Section 5949[58] | Final rule pending |
| February 20, 2026 | Supreme Court holds in Learning Resources v. Trump that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs; Executive Order 14389 ends the IEEPA duties[47][48] | Completed |
| March 17, 2026 | Huang says H200 licenses granted, orders received, manufacturing restarting[15] | Superseded by later data |
| March 19, 2026 | Indictment unsealed against three people charged with diverting AI servers to China[55] | One guilty plea, October 2026[56] |
| April 14, 2026 | Deadline for the 90-day negotiation update under clause 2 of Proclamation 11002[2] | Not made public |
| May 2026 | Commerce clears roughly ten Chinese firms, including Alibaba, [Tencent](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/tencent) and [ByteDance](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/bytedance); no deliveries yet[17] | Small deliveries began by July 2026 |
| May 20, 2026 | NVIDIA reports Q1 FY2027 revenue of $81.6 billion; no Hopper shipments to China and no China [data center](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/data_center) compute revenue in its outlook[9][30] | Superseded by Q2 results |
| May 28, 2026 | Federal Register notice implements the US-Taiwan memorandum's tariff terms for auto parts, wood products and aircraft components[22] | In force; no chip-specific rate |
| July 1, 2026 | Deadline in Proclamation 11002 for the Secretary's data-center semiconductor market update[2] | No public update as of October 2026 |
| July 13, 2026 | 180 days from Proclamation 11002, the agreement window in paragraph 12[2] | No further action announced |
| July 14, 2026 | Kessler tells the House Foreign Affairs Committee that H200 shipments have begun but are "very few"[17] | Superseded by later shipment data |
| July 24, 2026 | Section 122 surcharge expires; Section 301 tariffs on 60 economies take effect, exempting heading 9903.79.01[49][50] | In force |
| August 6, 2026 | Proclamation 11052 sets minimum import prices and a 15 percent duty on polysilicon and derivatives, citing Proclamation 11002[32] | Takes effect December 4, 2026 |
| August 26, 2026 | NVIDIA reports Q2 FY2027 revenue of $96.2 billion; H200 sales to China under 1 percent of data center revenue[31][33] | Latest reported quarter |
| September 2, 2026 | Lutnick says chip tariffs will spare companies that build in the United States[46] | No proclamation as of October 2026 |

## References

1. Bureau of Industry and Security, "Notice of Request for Public Comments on Section 232 National Security Investigation of Imports of Semiconductors and Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment," 90 FR 15950, April 16, 2025. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-04-16/html/2025-06591.htm
2. Proclamation 11002 of January 14, 2026, "Adjusting Imports of Semiconductors, Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment, and Their Derivative Products Into the United States," 91 FR 2443, January 20, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-20/html/2026-01052.htm
3. The White House, Annex to Proclamation 11002 (new U.S. note 39 to subchapter III of chapter 99 and headings 9903.79.01 through 9903.79.09), January 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2026SemiConductor.prc_.rel-ANNEX.pdf
4. U.S. International Trade Commission, Harmonized Tariff Schedule, headings 9903.79.01 through 9903.79.09. https://hts.usitc.gov/reststop/search?keyword=9903.79
5. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CSMS #67400472, "GUIDANCE: Section 232 Import Duties on Semiconductors and their Derivative Products," January 14, 2026. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSCBP/bulletins/4047318
6. Bureau of Industry and Security, "Revision to License Review Policy for Advanced Computing Commodities," final rule, 91 FR 1684, January 15, 2026 (RIN 0694-AK43, docket 260112-0028). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-15/html/2026-00789.htm
7. Bureau of Industry and Security, "Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing Items; Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use; Updates and Corrections," 88 FR 73458, October 25, 2023. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-10-25/html/2023-23055.htm
8. NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for First Quarter Fiscal 2026," May 28, 2025. https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2025/NVIDIA-Announces-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2026/default.aspx
9. NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for First Quarter Fiscal 2027," May 20, 2026. https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2026/NVIDIA-Announces-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2027/default.aspx
10. Laura Bratton, Yahoo Finance, "Nvidia still hasn't finalized deal to kick 15% of H20 China chip sales back to the US government," August 28, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-still-hasnt-finalized-deal-to-kick-15-of-h20-china-chip-sales-back-to-the-us-government-230229161.html
11. The Register, "Trump teases 'approximately' 100 percent chip tariffs," August 7, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/08/07/trump-teases-approximately-100-percent-chip-tariffs/1519054
12. The Register, "EU-US deal confirms 15% tariff cap on semiconductors, more," August 21, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/08/21/eu-us-deal-confirms-15-tariff-cap-on-semiconductors-more/678749
13. Simon Sharwood, The Register, "Trump says Nvidia can sell H200s to China," December 9, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/12/09/trump-says-nvidia-can-sell-h200s-to-china/2020308
14. The Register, "Nvidia reportedly wants up front payments for Chinese H200s," January 8, 2026. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/01/08/nvidia-reportedly-wants-up-front-payments-for-chinese-h200s/4767852
15. The Register, "Nvidia H200 back on in China, production ramping: Huang," March 17, 2026. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/03/17/nvidia-h200-back-on-in-china-production-ramping-huang/5223086
16. Janet Egan and James Sanders, Center for a New American Security, "CNAS Insights: Unpacking the H200 Export Policy," January 16, 2026. https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/cnas-insights-unpacking-the-h200-export-policy
17. David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld, Reuters, "US official says Nvidia has begun shipping powerful H200 AI chips to China," July 14, 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/us-official-says-shipments-h200-145319415.html ; Jeffrey I. Kessler, prepared statement, House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing "FY27 BIS Budget: the AI Arms Race and the ICTS Office," July 14, 2026. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20260714/119444/HHRG-119-FA00-Wstate-KesslerJ-20260714.pdf
18. Office of the United States Trade Representative, "Notice of Action: China's Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Targeting of the Semiconductor Industry for Dominance," 90 FR 60848, December 29, 2025. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-29/html/2025-23912.htm
19. Bureau of Industry and Security, "Revocation of Validated End-User Authorizations in the People's Republic of China," 90 FR 42321, September 2, 2025. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-09-02/html/2025-16735.htm
20. Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, "Federal Acquisition Regulation: Prohibition on Certain Semiconductor Products and Services," advance notice of proposed rulemaking, 89 FR 36738, May 3, 2024. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-05-03/html/2024-08735.htm
21. Meghan Ostertag and Trelysa Long, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, "Section 232 Semiconductor Tariffs Could Undermine US Economic Growth," June 4, 2026. https://itif.org/publications/2026/06/04/section-232-semiconductor-tariffs-could-undermine-us-economic-growth/
22. International Trade Administration and Office of the United States Trade Representative, "Implementing Certain Tariff-Related Elements of a Trade and Security Agreement Between the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States," 91 FR 31818, May 28, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-05-28/html/2026-10571.htm
23. NVIDIA, "NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPU" product specifications. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/h200/
24. Simon Sharwood, The Register, "Report says US to charge Nvidia, AMD, 15 percent China export tax," August 11, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/08/11/report-says-us-to-charge-nvidia-amd-15-china-export-tax/719821
25. Tobias Mann, The Register, "China warns against using Nvidia H20s for government jobs," August 12, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/08/12/china-warns-against-using-nvidia-h20s-for-government-jobs/1513897
26. Tobias Mann, The Register, "Beijing demands Chinese tech terminate Nvidia orders," September 18, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/09/18/beijing-demands-chinese-tech-terminate-nvidia-orders/1128121
27. Carly Page, The Register, "China turns the screws on Nvidia with antitrust probe," September 15, 2025. https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/09/15/china-turns-the-screws-on-nvidia-with-antitrust-probe/1479944
28. Maggie Eastland, Bloomberg Government, "China Is 'Rejecting' H200, Outfoxing US Strategy, Sacks Says," December 13, 2025. https://news.bgov.com/artificial-intelligence/china-is-rejecting-h200-outfoxing-us-strategy-sacks-says-2
29. AMD, "AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerator" data sheet. https://www.amd.com/content/dam/amd/en/documents/instinct-tech-docs/product-briefs/instinct-mi325x-datasheet.pdf
30. Grace O'Donnell, Yahoo Finance, "4 important takeaways from Nvidia's earnings," May 21, 2026. https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/article/4-important-takeaways-from-nvidias-earnings-215437095.html
31. NVIDIA, "NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Second Quarter Fiscal 2027," August 26, 2026. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-second-quarter-fiscal-2027
32. Proclamation 11052 of August 6, 2026, "Adjusting Imports of Polysilicon and Its Derivatives Into the United States," 91 FR 51975, August 11, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-11/html/2026-16400.htm
33. Maggie Eastland, Bloomberg, "Nvidia Steps Back Into China Market With First H200 Chip Sales," August 26, 2026. https://news.bloombergtax.com/international-trade/nvidia-steps-back-into-china-market-with-first-h200-chip-sales
34. NVIDIA Corporation, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 26, 2026, filed August 26, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000075/nvda-20260726.htm
35. Advanced Micro Devices, Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, filed August 5, 2026. https://ir.amd.com/sec-filings/content/0000002488-26-000123/amd-20260627.htm
36. Congressional Research Service, "Legal Authority for Export Controls and Tariffs on Semiconductor Chips Sold to China," Legal Sidebar LSB11409, March 23, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11409
37. U.S. Department of Commerce, "Fact Sheet: Restoring American Semiconductor Manufacturing Leadership Through an Agreement on Trade & Investment with Taiwan," January 15, 2026. https://www.commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2026/01/fact-sheet-restoring-american-semiconductor-manufacturing-leadership
38. Office of the United States Trade Representative, "Fact Sheet on U.S.-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade," February 2026. https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2026/february/fact-sheet-us-taiwan-agreement-reciprocal-trade
39. The White House, "Joint Fact Sheet on President Donald J. Trump's Meeting with President Lee Jae Myung," November 13, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/joint-fact-sheet-on-president-donald-j-trumps-meeting-with-president-lee-jae-myung/
40. United States and Japan, "Joint Statement on the Framework Agreement between the United States and Japan on July 22, 2025," September 2025, published by the Cabinet Secretariat of Japan. https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/tariff_measures/houmon/pdf/kyoudouseimei%28EN%29.pdf
41. European Commission, "Joint Statement on a United States-European Union framework on an agreement on reciprocal, fair and balanced trade," August 21, 2025. https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/news/joint-statement-united-states-european-union-framework-agreement-reciprocal-fair-and-balanced-trade-2025-08-21_en
42. "Joint Statement by the United States, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein on Reaching a Framework for an Agreement on Fair, Balanced, and Reciprocal Trade," November 14, 2025, Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents DCPD-202501122. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202501122/html/DCPD-202501122.htm
43. The White House and U.S. Department of Commerce, "Trump Administration Secures an Additional $100 Billion U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing Investment for a Total of $265 Billion from TSMC," July 16, 2026. https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2026/07/16/FINAL%20TSMC%20PR.pdf
44. Maggie Eastland, Bloomberg Law, "Lutnick Says Some Korean, Taiwanese Firms Risk 100% Chip Tariffs," January 17, 2026. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/lutnick-says-some-korean-taiwanese-firms-risk-100-chip-tariffs
45. Eleanor Mueller, Semafor, "No 'immediate' tariffs on semiconductors," May 22, 2026. https://semafor.com/article/05/22/2026/no-immediate-tariffs-on-semiconductors
46. Yonhap, The Korea Times, "Lutnick: Trump gov't considering 'targeted,' thoughtful' tariff policy for semiconductors," September 3, 2026. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/world/20260903/lutnick-trump-govt-considering-targeted-thoughtful-tariff-policy-for-semiconductors
47. Supreme Court of the United States, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287, decided February 20, 2026. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_new_3135.pdf
48. Executive Order 14389 of February 20, 2026, "Ending Certain Tariff Actions," 91 FR 9437, February 25, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-25/html/2026-03832.htm
49. Proclamation 11012 of February 20, 2026, "Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge To Address Fundamental International Payments Problems," 91 FR 9339, February 25, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-25/html/2026-03824.htm
50. Office of the United States Trade Representative, "Notice of Actions in Section 301 Investigations of Acts, Policies, and Practices of Various Economies Related to the Failure of Each Economy To Impose and Effectively Enforce a Prohibition on the Importation of Goods Produced With Forced Labor," 91 FR 47318, July 28, 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-07-28/html/2026-15181.htm
51. U.S. International Trade Commission, "Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (2026 Revision 5): Change Record," April 8, 2026. https://hts.usitc.gov/reststop/file?release=2026HTSRev5&filename=Change%20Record
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