Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on September 4, 2026 that he does not expect President Trump's scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to include discussion of relaxing export controls on American technology, including advanced AI chips, even as Beijing has not taken up an earlier White House offer to sell it advanced chips.
Lutnick said separately that the administration intends to move quickly to approve AI chip export licenses destined for allied countries, a signal that the government is prioritizing faster approvals for trusted partners while keeping restrictions on China firmly in place.
Why it matters
The comments come as U.S. chipmakers including Nvidia and AMD have pushed for clarity on where they can sell advanced AI accelerators, with allied governments in the Gulf, Europe and Asia racing to secure supply for their own AI infrastructure buildouts. Faster licensing for allies could unlock billions of dollars in chip sales while keeping the core restrictions on China intact, but it also raises the diversion risk that chips shipped to allied countries could still find their way to restricted end users.
How it works
Export licenses for advanced computing items are reviewed under the Export Administration Regulations, with Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security assessing destination, end user and end use before approval. Lutnick's comments suggest the administration wants to streamline that review specifically for allied-country buyers, distinct from the stricter, presumption-of-denial-style scrutiny still applied to China-bound shipments, following earlier 2026 rule changes that had already shifted China-bound reviews to a case-by-case model for select chips.
Evidence
Lutnick's remarks, reported September 4, 2026 by Export Compliance Daily and echoed in wire coverage the same week, stated plainly that Trump-Xi talks would not touch export controls and that China had not accepted the administration's earlier offer to sell it advanced chips, a point Lutnick separately reiterated to other outlets in early September 2026.
The competing read
The administration frames faster allied licensing as rewarding partners who accept U.S. security conditions while maintaining a hard line against China, consistent with its broader effort to keep advanced compute out of Beijing's reach. Critics, including some export-control hawks in Congress, have warned that expanding chip sales to third countries risks creating new transshipment routes into China, a concern amplified by recent research documenting active diversion pathways for restricted Nvidia chips.
What happens next
Chipmakers and allied governments are watching for formal BIS guidance detailing which countries and buyers qualify for expedited licensing, while the outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting later in September 2026 will be scrutinized for any shift, however small, in the administration's China chip-export posture.