WSJ What’s News - Trump Lets Nvidia Sell More Chips to China

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

A.M. Edition for Dec. 9. Nvidia shares jumped off-hours after President Trump approved the sale of its high-performance H200 chips to China. WSJ Asia business editor Peter Landers, says it's a boon for the AI-trade, following the recent selloff. Plus, WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng and Tom Fairless explain how China’s booming manufacturing sector is crushing Europe’s core businesses and driving Germany and France to consider tariffs of their own. And we look at the bellwether stakes of Miami’s mayoral race. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. A win for NVIDIA as President Trump okays the sale of its high-performance chips to China, plus the bellwether stakes of Miami's mayoral race. Even though the candidates have sought to focus on local issues like housing, taxes, and transportation, all these national political forces have helped turn the race into a referendum on the parties and on Trump himself.

And Ford turns to France's Renault to upshift its embattled European business. It's Tuesday, December 9th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Shares of Nvidia have jumped off hours after President Trump said he'd let the company export its H-200 chips to China in an apparent easing of stringent export controls. Journal Asia Business Editor Peter Lander says the move is a boon for NVIDIA, which has fought for months to maintain access to the world's second largest economy.

This is going to be another source of demand for NVIDIA. Probably billions of dollars of chip sales can be made to China if this is ultimately approved. At its peak, China was about 20% of NVIDIA's sales. It's been a lot less than that in recent years because of U.S. export controls. So there's still a huge company, extremely profitable without China, but certainly the China market, as CEO Jensen Huang, has said, is an important addition to whatever they're selling elsewhere. These chips are believed to be quite a bit ahead of anything that the Chinese chip makers can produce,

and so NVIDIA's products would be welcome in China, even though they're not as advanced as the NVIDIA chips that some U.S. customers can get their hands on. Curiously, Trump said the U.S. would receive a 25% cut of NVIDIA's chip sales in China without offering any details on how. And as Peter explains, taxing exports in that way might not be entirely legal. The Constitution actually says that the U.S. cannot impose a tax on exports, but probably there's no one out there who could legally challenge it. And Vidia is apparently willing to pay this 25% charge.

Their profit margin is much greater than that. but it is an extremely unusual arrangement for the U.S. government to take a cut of sales of a U.S. product that go overseas. Meanwhile, Chinese competition has been a growing headache for European carmakers, but now two major players are teaming up to try and push back. Ford is engaging France's Renault to make a pair of small EVs and maybe a van down the line to bolster its European lineup. Ford's accounted for just over 3% of new passenger cars sold on the continent this year, down from over 7% a decade ago. Well, let's keep the focus on China as the country has hit a major trade milestone,

achieving a $1 trillion trade surplus in goods. That is, in spite of U.S. tariffs meant to dent Chinese exports, and which have instead seen products redirected elsewhere, including to Europe, where a pair of leaders are now sounding the alarm and hinting new restrictive measures of their own. Joining us from Beijing is our China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng. And from Berlin, we've got global economics correspondent Tom Fairless with us as well. John, let me start with you. Talk to us about this trillion-dollar goods surplus figure. What does it represent? Obviously, what it means is that they're selling far more to the world than they are buying from the

world to the tune of a trillion dollars this year. This is obviously not something that is necessarily looked upon as a good thing in other countries, particularly in the White House, where President Trump has long had a problem with deficits, especially with China. But, you know, this is not just the U.S. China thing. This is a Europe thing. This is a whole world thing. This is China just making a lot more and selling a lot more to the world than thereby. Yeah, and it would seem putting a target on its back in the process. And we should note that this trillion dollar figure is actually probably going to be higher when 2025 is all said and done because it just covers the first 11 months of the year. Tom, let's look at Europe, the EU, among the places where Chinese shipments have

been increasing quite dramatically this year. They're up 15%. That has evidently attracted the attention of leaders in France and Germany who've been making some big comments in recent days. Yes, that's right. The French President Emmanuel Macron recently said that the trade balance with China is unsustainable and he raised the prospect of tariffs, of European tariffs against Chinese products. The Germans have been more cautious and I think there is a kind of ground swell of concern that's coming, especially from businesses, from German businesses that are being hit directly. The core of German industry is being threatened now by China because China has moved up the value chain. Germany escaped the first China shock that sort of rattled the US economy

because it produced higher-end goods and it produced the machinery that China needed. But now China doesn't need Germany so much anymore because it produces all the stuff itself. The German China shock could be even more severe than the U.S. China shock because for the U.S. It wasn't the core of the U.S. economy. It was furniture and toys. But machinery and cars is really the heart of the German economy. So German industry is really rattled and lobbyists are speaking out more and more for tariffs in Brussels. What is the chance we might see Beijing and, for instance, these European countries reach some sort of mutually agreeable solution here? John, I noticed Emmanuel Macron saying the goal is to get China to take measures to curb its advantage. Is there a reason China might be amenable to that? Certainly, I think the view in Beijing is to say, listen, we're playing by your rules. The whole idea is that those who can make certain products more competitively than others should make them and sell them to other countries. That's what we're doing. Now you're going to penalize this because you don't like

the result. But I do think that when you look at the geopolitical chess board around the world, China really regards the U.S. as the main rival adversary, however you want to put it. And in that scenario, Europe is actually someone that China wants to bring onto its side. So you could see a scenario where China looks at Europe and sees perhaps a tactical reason for wanting to extend a lifeline or go a little easier on Europe when it comes to trade. For Europe, what's the chance that, I don't know, getting a bit more defensive in their dealings with China would help their domestic champions. They've tried to boost them up for a while to no avail. Is there a reason this could be successful here where it hasn't been in the past?

I think some kind of deal, either on the currency that's sort of maybe if China agreed to allow the Yuan to appreciate or on some kind of tariffs against certain products, could buy time for European industries from the European perspective. there seems to be a growing sense that they're going to lose this battle, that for large parts of the world, expensive German products will not be competitive anymore and that they have to climb the value chain. They have to focus on the really highest end manufacturing goods and also probably refocus on the European market, probably markets like India and Brazil are maybe lost in future because China is just too dominant. So some kind of agreement with China could buy time. I think one thing that the Europeans would like is if the Chinese were to build more factories in Europe and to share some of the technologies, it would be a sort of reverse

of what European and U.S. companies were doing in China where they were sharing tech. It would be China coming to Europe and sharing tech. The question is whether China would accept. And there's some question about that. John Chang is the Wall Street Journal's China Bureau Chief and Tom Fairliss, our global economics correspondent based in Berlin. John, Tom, thank you both so much. Thanks for having us. Thanks, league. Coming up, Jamie Diamond puts himself forward to help defend American tech from foreign adversaries.

We have got that story plus a spin through the day's market news and a preview of a big election in Miami after the break. Jamie Diamond has announced that he's launching a one and a half trillion dollar initiative aimed at bolstering American self-sufficiency in critical. industries, including rare earths and AI. The J.P. Morgan CEO says he wants to protect America from potential foreign adversaries and is bringing together A-list business leaders, politicians, and military experts to advise the $4.6 trillion bank on the so-called security and resiliency initiative. The Elite Advisory Council includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Secretary

of State Condoleezza Rice. Diamond has also poached top. Rod Combs, one of Warren Buffett's hand-picked advisors to manage a $10 billion internal fund to invest in critical American supply chains. In other markets news, the Fed is kicking off its final rate-setting meeting of the year with a cut widely expected tomorrow. A U.S. jobs market update is landing today in the form of October's Joltz survey, which covers job openings and labor turnover. Shares of PepsiCo will be in focus after the beverage maker agreed to trim its product

lineup as part of an agreement with activist investor Elliott Investment Management. And this evening, President Trump will lay out his plans to fight inflation at an event in Pennsylvania. That's after he asked advisors in recent days to look into lowering beef prices. And finally, Miami residents are voting in a runoff mayoral election today that's widely being seen as the latest referendum on President Trump. Journal reporter Arion Campo Flores says that while the candidates have tried to highlight local issues like affordability, voters have also been focused on Trump's policies on immigration and the economy. The race is a runoff between the top two vote getters on November 4th, the Democrat Eileen Higgins, who is a former county commissioner, and the Republican Emilio Gonzalez, who is a former Miami city manager.

and it has increasingly become nationalized in the wake of recent elections, including the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the mayoral race in New York City, Democrats came out of them with a jolt of momentum. And so a win in Miami would give them another boost ahead of the midterm elections next year. It would also be significant because Miami hasn't had a Democratic mayor for roughly 30 years. Haryon explains that despite Miami being a Republican stronghold, Trump's immigration policies have come under growing scrutiny by the city's large immigrant population. There was a recent poll that was done for the Miami Herald that found that even though Trump had 46% approval rating in Miami-Dade County, voters were less enthused by some of his administration's policies. For instance, only 35% supported the administration's efforts to end temporary protected status for Venezuela.

And only 15% agreed with this decision to hand over land owned by Miami-Dade College to be used for a Trump presidential library. Polls in Miami are open until 7 p.m. Eastern. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening. I don't know.