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Johnson backs NDAA curbs on U.S. chip sales to China, Politico says
Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico he supports putting chip export restrictions in the annual defense bill, as lawmakers weigh tighter limits after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
- New headline Was: “Hill sources say alleged Huang affair lifts odds of NDAA chip limits”
- Our desk updated its story
House Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico he supports measures to restrict U.S. chip sales to China, including putting chip export restrictions in the annual National Defense Authorization Act1.
Politico's Kelsey Brugger recorded the speaker saying he backs including those export limits in the must-pass defense bill1.
A later Politico report by Ari Hawkins and Gabby Miller said lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists close to the debate argue Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair with a woman alleged to be a Chinese intelligence asset has significantly raised the chances Congress will enact chip export limits this year in the NDAA.
Stopping new restrictions on sales to China has been one of Nvidia's largest Washington priorities, that report said. After more than a year of lobbying to pare back export-control proposals, the company appears to have shifted toward leaning on tech-sector allies and major customers to make its case, according to two Hill aides and a lobbyist granted anonymity.
Nvidia and its allies argue that selling high-power chips into China is important to U.S. standing in artificial intelligence, while a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing the limits says that access is a national security risk.
Three lobbyists granted anonymity told Politico the Chip Security Act, which would require location-verification and tracking on exported advanced chips, has emerged as the measure most likely to attach to the year-end bill; chipmakers warn those guardrails would raise costs.
House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, who is pushing export restrictions in the package, told reporters Tuesday that the scandal has "100 percent" weakened Huang's ability to lobby against the limits. "It's made a hell of a lot of people aware of something that they put little to no thought into before," Mast said.
Hawkins and Miller wrote that Johnson's position echoed House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has also backed including export controls. What language, if any, survives conference and a White House signature is not settled in Politico's reporting1. The affair and intelligence-asset claims remain allegations.