Bessent blames Lutnick's Commerce Department for not restricting Nvidia chips to China

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday he was frustrated with the Commerce Department’s delay in implementing restrictions over the export of certain Nvidia chips to China. Bessent said on CNBC that his department, along with the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Trade Representative, were in favor of adding Megaspeed to an export control list for months but that the Commerce Department was in charge of the matter. “I am frustrated when President Trump made it very clear China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s,” he said, referring to an older generation of the company's advanced AI chips. Commerce “has the pen, and you will have to ask them about their internal processes.” Bessent's comments were an unusually public rebuke of the Commerce Department, which oversees U.S. government controls over exports of sensitive, high-tech goods. The comments come as Nvidia’s ties to Singapore-based Megaspeed International, which prominently touts the companies’ partnership on its website, play a prominent role in the resignation of Nvidia