U.S. Tightens Chip Controls

The Trump administration is tightening its line on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, even as it leaves a narrow path for some lower-tier sales. (money.usnews.com) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers on April 22 that Nvidia had sold zero H200 artificial-intelligence chips to Chinese companies “as of today,” and said the United States would not send China its “best chips.” Reuters reported he tied the lack of sales partly to Chinese approval hurdles. (money.usnews.com) (washingtonexaminer.com) The fight is also moving upstream, from chips to the machines that make them. A revised House bill introduced April 2, called the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act, would still restrict sales of some foreign chipmaking equipment to Chinese facilities tied to ChangXin Memory Technologies, Yangtze Memory Technologies, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) Micron has been pressing Congress to go further by tightening export rules on equipment used at Chinese fabs, according to reporting on the lobbying push. The bill’s stated aim is to align U.S. controls more closely with allies including Japan and the Netherlands, where key toolmakers operate. (telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (economictimes.indiatimes.com) A semiconductor is the tiny switch-filled component that runs phones, servers, missiles, and artificial-intelligence systems; the most advanced versions depend on rare manufacturing tools, not just chip designs. The Congressional Research Service says U.S. controls since 2018 have targeted both China’s access to advanced chips and its ability to make them at home. (congress.gov) Congressional Research Service analysts say Washington’s policy has two goals at once: preserve U.S. leadership in advanced computing and slow China’s development of competing capabilities. The same report says critics of looser rules argue that wider exports could help fill Chinese technology gaps, while others say tighter controls can push China faster toward self-reliance. (congress.gov) That tension showed up in the market this month. ASML, the Dutch company that dominates lithography systems, said on April 15 that first-quarter net sales were 8.8 billion euros, net income was 2.8 billion euros, and its 2026 sales outlook rose to 36 billion to 40 billion euros. (asml.com) ASML also said its 2026 guidance range already includes “potential outcomes” from ongoing export-control talks. Investors are weighing that stronger demand picture against the risk that wider China curbs could cut future orders for the industry’s most important equipment suppliers. (asml.com) (coincentral.com) For now, Washington’s message is that the choke point is not just the chip leaving a U.S. factory, but the tool entering a Chinese one. The next test is whether Congress turns that approach into law and whether allies follow. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (congress.gov)