Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 2.05% ) got a jolt on Friday after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is kicking around the idea of letting the company ship its top-tier H200 chips to China. These are the fully loaded Hopper chips, not the toned-down H20 models Nvidia created to stay inside export rules.
The twist is that this conversation almost happened months ago. Trump floated the idea of allowing Blackwell sales to China before his October meeting with President Xi, then pulled it from the agenda at the last second. If the new chatter sticks, it would be the biggest shift in Nvidia’s China position all year.
Nvidia could use the break. Its 2025 run has happened while its China business has been boxed in. Export limits forced a 4.5 billion dollar impairment in Q1, and management said Q2 revenue would have been 8 billion dollars higher without the restrictions. The eventual approval to resume H20 shipments didn’t help much either, because China responded by banning its own tech firms from buying them.
CFO Colette Kress told analysts that big H20 orders never showed up thanks to geopolitics and fiercer competition in China. That set the stage for a strange earnings reaction where Nvidia posted strong numbers but the market barely applauded.
A headline that hit the wires before earnings captured the mood:
“TRUMP: IF NVIDIA'S HUANG IS HAPPY, I'M HAPPY.”
Judging by the stock’s pop, this might be the first headline all week that actually gives Huang something to smile about.