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TWN Info Service
on WTO and Trade Issues (Aug25/09) Geneva, 12 Aug (D. Ravi Kanth) -- United States President Donald Trump on 11 August praised China by saying that "we've been dealing very nicely with China" and that "the relationship is very good", while suggesting that he will extend for another 90 days the tariff deadline with Beijing, which was supposed to expire on 12 August. According to the latest media reports, President Trump signed an executive order extending the China tariff deadline for another 90 days, just hours before the original deadline was set to expire. In his remarks to reporters at the White House on 11 August, President Trump also suggested that he is considering allowing chip giant Nvidia to sell its advanced H20 chips to China. The H20 chip, based on Nvidia's older Hopper architecture, was introduced in the market in 2023, but the previous Biden administration barred the sale of advanced chips to China. President Trump signalled that he is going to talk to Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang to allow the US to sell chips to China based on its latest Blackwell platform. As regards the relationship with China, President Trump said, "They have tremendous tariffs that they're paying to the United States of America ... and we'll see what happens" on 12 August, when the deadline was set to expire. "They've been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President Xi and myself," President Trump said, at the same time that he was making seemingly disparaging remarks against India and Brazil, said people familiar with the development. On the sale of advanced chips, President Trump said the US has been selling "obsolete" chips manufactured by Nvidia. According to the latest media reports, both Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay 15% of their chip sales to China to the US government, as part of a rather unusual deal to gain licenses for exports of chips to China. The US has imposed what could be safely considered an export tax of 15% on the chips sold by Nvidia to China, with President Trump pointing out that "I deal with Jensen, who is a great guy, and NVIDIA. The chip that we're talking about is the old chip." "Jensen also has a new chip, the Blackwell... The Blackwell is superduper advanced. I wouldn't make a deal with that," President Trump said. He added, "Although it's possible I'd make a deal on a somewhat enhanced, in a negative way, Blackwell. In other words, take 30% to 50% off of it." President Trump said he asked for "20%, if I'm going to approve this for you, for the country, for our country, for the US. I don't want it myself. You know, every time I say, like, like, 747, I want. I want. Yeah. For the Air Force. That's all I just wanted. So when I say I want 20, I want for the country. I only care about the country. I don't care about myself." However, he said that he settled for 15%, adding that it is a "little deal" where the US would sell an "old chip ... Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing." The head of the world's largest economy has now become a commercial deal-maker, said an analyst, suggesting that everything has a price to settle the deal. President Trump said the sale of Nvidia chips "has a stopper, what we call a stopper, not allowed to do it. It was strictly known as a restrictive covenant." Meanwhile, writing on his Truth Social media website, President Trump said, "China is worried about its shortage of soybeans. Our great farmers produce the most robust soybeans. I hope China will quickly quadruple its soybean orders. This is also a way of substantially reducing China's Trade Deficit with the USA. Rapid service will be provided." +
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