Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter on Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. They ask the department to preserve all records on the arrangement under which sales of Nvidia's H200 chips to China were approved. As members of the minority they can ask questions but cannot compel answers.
According to the letter, the chips, made in Taiwan, were first shipped to the US, where a tariff was applied, and only then did the Commerce Department issue an export license. The authors argue this amounts to an unconstitutional export tax system. The revenue-sharing deal itself was public: in August 2025 Nvidia and AMD agreed to give the government 15% of revenue from chip sales to China in exchange for export licenses.
The letter also asks why the department kept approving purchases by Singapore-based Megaspeed, which US officials suspect of helping route advanced chips into China, after it was reportedly informed by intelligence of suspicions about one of its executives. It further asks about approvals for Asian companies with no physical presence at their listed addresses, and about Nvidia's donations to Trump's projects.
This is the second congressional inquiry since the scandal broke. A Republican-led group from the House Select Committee on the CCP, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence Committee demanded that Huang testify behind closed doors, and he agreed on Thursday after his resignation. Nvidia and the Commerce Department had not commented in the report.