Trump eyes chip talks, tariff rollbacks in meeting with Xi

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he will speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping about Nvidia's Blackwell artificial intelligence chip at their expected meeting on Thursday.

Sales of the US firm's high-end AI chips to China have been a key sticking point in protracted trade talks between the world's two largest economies this year.

Beijing has long been irked by Washington's export controls that ban Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips to China. The US has justified these restrictions by alleging that the Chinese military would use the chips to increase its capabilities.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Gyeongju, South Korea, Trump praised Nvidia's Blackwell as the "super-duper chip" and said he might speak to Xi about them, without elaborating.

"I think we may be talking about that with President Xi," Trump said, adding he was "very optimistic" about his meeting with Xi, the first since he returned to the White House.

It was reported in May that Nvidia was preparing a new chip for China — a scaled-down variant of its latest advanced AI Blackwell chips — at a significantly lower cost.

Nvidia CEO Jesen Huang said on Tuesday his company had not applied for US export licenses to send its newest chips to China because of the Chinese position.

"They've made it very clear that they don't want Nvidia to be there right now," he said at a news conference during the company's developers event, adding it needs access to the China market to fund US-based research and development.

"I hope that will change in the future because I think China is a very important market."

US administrations have swung back and forth on allowing Nvidia's advanced chips into China, vacillating on whether access would make China more dependent on the US technology or give its military and tech companies a competitive boost.

Beijing has put pressure on Chinese firms to buy and further develop domestic chips in response to US export controls targeting the sale of Nvidia chips to China.

Despite that pressure, according to previous reports, Chinese developers still want Nvidia's chips due to constrained supplies of products from domestic rivals such as Huawei.

Fentanyl-related tariffs

Trump also said on Wednesday that he expects to lower fentanyl-related tariffs against China during his upcoming meeting with Xi.

The US president said Beijing would cooperate on curbing fentanyl exports.

"I expect to be lowering that because I believe that they're going to help us with the fentanyl situation," he said.

He added that tighter border controls are already making a difference.

Trump also said there will be discussions on rare earths and US farmers.

"We're going to work out something. We're doing very well with rare earths. We're, I think, going to make a big step with fentanyl," he said.

Asked about Taiwan, he said he is unsure whether it would be discussed.

"There's not that much to ask about it. Taiwan is Taiwan, but the beautiful part about Taiwan, frankly, they understand it, is we're bringing a lot of those chip makers into the United States," he added.

The president called ties with China "very good", adding: "We are going to have a great meeting with China's Xi."

Trump's stop in South Korea marks the final leg of his Asia trip following agreements on rare earths in Japan and ongoing trade talks with Seoul.