Chip Export Curb Bills Are 'Very Likely' in Defense Bill, Mast Says

A trio of bills imposing new guardrails on US advanced-chip exports to China is "very likely" to land in this year's must-pass defense bill, House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast said Thursday.

The Florida Republican, whose committee oversees export control policy, told reporters the scandal around Jensen Huang has added momentum to the push. Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO earlier Thursday after revelations he had an extramarital relationship with a potential Chinese spy.

"If he doesn't know who he's in bed with, he doesn't know where all the chips are going either, and we know that for a fact," Mast said.

What would the bills actually do?

Lawmakers are discussing three measures for the annual defense package:

• The Chip Security Act would crack down on smuggling by requiring advanced chips to contain location-verification mechanisms.
• A second bill would tighten restrictions on chip-making equipment and push foreign countries to match US restrictions.
• A third would give Congress a chance to review licenses for advanced sales of AI chips.

The location-tracking mandate is the sharpest tool in the set. It would let regulators verify, chip by chip, whether American silicon ends up inside China despite export bans.

Will Trump go along?

President Donald Trump has been cool to the idea of tighter chip export restrictions. He previously signed off on deals that allowed Nvidia to sell more of its high-end chips to China. That puts the White House at odds with Mast's committee as the defense bill negotiations proceed.

Mast's calculus: the Huang scandal has changed the political math on Capitol Hill. Whether it changes the president's mind is the open question.

Does Mast still trust the Commerce Department?

Partly. Mast said he still has confidence in Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is facing growing scrutiny over his handling of the Trump administration's chips policy. But he pointedly declined to back a key Lutnick deputy, Jeffrey Kessler, who heads the Bureau of Industry and Security — the bureau in charge of export controls.

Asked if he has confidence in Kessler, Mast said: "I'm not going to answer that yes or no. It's something that — you know, he's been most granular on this level and a lot of things about where chips can and can't be sold to. That's been more of an argumentative dynamic."

He also said he "absolutely" wants to investigate BIS' role in the Nvidia controversy. A BIS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How soon could Huang testify?

Sooner than Nvidia might like. Mast is pressing for the former CEO to appear before Congress about the scandal and said he wants him "basically in a week."

"Sooner rather than later," Mast added.

He is in talks with Huang's team but didn't rule out a subpoena. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mast framed the subpoena as a simple escalation: "If negotiations shut off and we don't think they're in good faith, OK, fine, do that. I'll just subpoena you for the next day. No big deal."

What's at stake

Three forces are converging on Nvidia's China business at once: a routing scandal that took down its CEO, a defense-bill vehicle that could carry binding export controls, and a congressional investigation into the very bureau that licenses chip sales. If Mast gets his trio of bills into the defense package, the location-verification mandate alone would rewrite how Nvidia and its peers physically track advanced silicon after it ships.