From the NYT editorial board:
The best policy going forward would be a strengthening of the controls. Regulators should avoid approving any H200 requests unless they become confident that H200 would not strengthen China’s A.I. capabilities. The Trump administration should maintain the ban on Blackwell sales and should extend it to the next generation of chips, known as Rubin.
Ben Thompson has long advocated for releasing the chips while tightening the ban on the equipment that China’s own factories rely on. His Taiwan deterrence case is that selling advanced chips keeps Chinese buyers reliant on TSMC fabs. A China that needs Taiwan’s factories operational has less reason to invade the island.
And Trump indeed approved H200 exports in December 2025. But only a month later, reports emerged that Beijing had instructed its customs authorities to block the chips at the border.
A decade of chip policy assumed China would accept whatever Washington permitted. Beijing showed it can refuse.