This week, the head and founder of NVIDIA Jensen Huang managed to meet with US President Donald Trump to discuss both issues that excite them. The content of the conversation is not disclosed, but Trump, according to its results, stated that he was hoping to introduce increased import duties on chips, oil and gas from February 18.
Image source: NVIDIA
According to this logic, in the near future, semiconductor components imported in the United States and Taiwadia in this regard will only depend on the Taiwanese company TSMC in the USA. Even if its products were able to transfer to the conveyor of the American TSMC enterprise in Arizona, at first, enterprises in Taiwan would still be engaged in packaging and testing of chips, and from the point of view of customs declaration the final products would remain imported. Subsequently, testing and packaging of chips can be established in the United States, but the demand for products of the same NVIDIA is too large to be covered exclusively with the forces of TSMC enterprises in Arizona.
Trump, following the results of a meeting with Juang, limited himself only to detached comments, explaining that “he could not say what will happen.” According to him, they had a good meeting with Juang, and he described the interlocutor as a gentleman. NVIDIA representatives also limited themselves to a statement that the company appreciated the possibility of meeting with the US president to discuss semiconductors and policies in the field of artificial intelligence. It was the importance of strengthening the leadership of the United States in the field of technology and AI who discussed Trump and Juang, as it becomes clear from the comments of NVIDIA representatives. The US President said: “Tariffs do not cause inflation, they are conducting success.” According to him, even if some difficulties arise at the first stage, people will treat this with understanding.
According to some experts, the changes in the tariff policy offered by Trump will lead to the demand for PCs, smartphones and game consoles in the United States will decrease by more than 50 %, since devices such as tablets and laptops rise in price by 46 to 68 %.
The situation around DeepSeek did not provoke the meeting of the meeting on its own, since the agreement was reached earlier, but the sources familiar with the content of the conversation explained to Reuters that Trump considers the breakthrough of the Chinese startup, as American companies will not be forced to spend “tons of money” on the construction of inexpensive alternatives In the field of AI.
As you know, the US government is also considering restricting the supply of NVIDIA computing accelerators to China. The most productive solutions (H20), available to Chinese clients of the company, may be banned. Whether this topic was touched on at the meeting of the US President and the head of NVIDIA is not specified, but representatives of the company previously expressed their discontent with a general strengthening of export control, which occurred even under Bayden.