Bessent Points at Commerce Over Failure to Block Megaspeed
Lutnick is due before the Senate Banking Committee in December as scrutiny of how advanced chips reach China intensifies.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has placed blame on the Commerce Department, led by Howard Lutnick, for weak oversight of advanced AI chip exports, as the fallout from the Nvidia scandal reaches the Trump cabinet. Bessent said several agencies had backed adding Megaspeed, a firm probed for allegedly moving Nvidia chips into China, to the Entity List for months, while Commerce controls that decision. He also pressed Nvidia to explain whether it knew its customers were pass-through shell companies, and said anyone at the company responsible should be held accountable, though he stopped short of saying CEO Jensen Huang knew. Lutnick is due to testify before the Senate Banking Committee in December, and congressional Democrats have demanded that records be kept and opened investigations into the approval of H200 sales to Chinese firms.
Why it matters
The dispute centres on who decides whether a firm suspected of routing Nvidia chips into China gets added to the Entity List, and on whether existing export rules are enforced properly. For those who follow US technology policy, it shows how divided responsibility across agencies can leave a known concern unresolved for months. Bessent's position is that the existing rules should be enforced rather than made stricter, which makes the December hearing a test of Commerce's oversight. Democrats' criticism of the tariff on H200 chips adds a separate question about whether a trade measure was used for a national security purpose.
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