Legal Standing and Export Controls in Semiconductors

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare, sat down with Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Janet Egan, a senior fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security; and Peter Harrell, a nonresident fellow at Carnegie and a former senior director for international economics at the White House National Security Council under President Joe Biden.

They discussed the Trump administration’s recent decision to allow U.S. companies Nvidia and AMD to export a range of advanced AI semiconductors to China in exchange for a 15% payment to the U.S. government. They talked about the history of the export control regime targeting China’s access to AI chips, the strategic risks of allowing China to acquire powerful chips like the Nvidia H20, and the potential harm to the international coalition that has worked to restrict China’s access to this technology. They also debated the statutory and constitutional legality of the deal, which appears to function as an export tax, a practice explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Financial Times article breaking the news about the Nvidia deal
• The Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan

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