Trump 'sells out' U.S. national security with Nvidia chip sales to China, Sen. Warren says

President Donald Trump's decision to let Nvidia sell its advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China "sells out American national security," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Thursday.

Warren also reiterated her call for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify before Congress about the agreement, along with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The senator's fiery remarks on the Senate floor came three days after Trump announced on social media that the U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia could sell the chips to "approved customers" in China, so long as the U.S. gets a 25% cut of the revenues.

The announcement drew concerns both from Democrats and some of Trump's Republican allies, who have been vocal about protecting America's hardware advantage over China in the race to AI superiority.

An Nvidia spokesperson, in response to Warren, told CNBC that the H200 sales to China will still require a U.S. government license and "at most will be a smaller percentage of the Hopper and Blackwell compute already sold to U.S. customers."

"We heard the same arguments about the H20, and the administration's critics had it backwards" the spokesperson said, referring to the less-powerful chips that the White House had previously approved for sale to China.

"Selling H20 was good for America's economic and national security. After H20 shipments were blocked, America lost billions, and foreign AI chip firms stepped into the gap and grew dramatically," the spokesperson said.

"America's foreign competitors and the Administration's critics are pushing the same end — to force massive commercial markets to support and promote foreign competition," the spokesperson added.

Warren, in Thursday's remarks, urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that "reins in this administration" by imposing new chip export restrictions. Critics of the bill say it could undermine U.S. chipmakers' competitiveness.

The Trump administration knows that China gaining access to the chips, which have previously been subject to export restrictions, "poses a serious threat to our technological leadership and national security," Warren said on the Senate floor.

She noted that shortly before Trump announced his decision on the H200 chips on Monday, the Department of Justice touted a crackdown touted a crackdown on a "major China-linked AI tech smuggling network."

"So why did the president make this bad deal that sells out the American economy and sells out American national security?" she asked. "It's simple: In the Trump administration, money talks."

"Mr. Huang understands that in this administration, being able to cozy up to Donald Trump might be the most important corporate CEO skill of all," Warren said.

She pointed to Huang attending a $1 million-per-plate dinner at Trump's Florida home Mar-a-Lago, and Nvidia's later donations to the president's under-construction White House ballroom.

"Those are just the most obvious possible reasons to cut this deal," Warren said, "and who knows what else Mr. Huang might have done behind closed doors to persuade President Trump and Secretary Lutnick into making this dangerous concession."