By Edith Olmsted
Publication Date: 2026-02-10 00:00:00
To be sure, Trump’s fondness for a tech billionaire and Huang’s spineless sycophancy don’t come as a surprise. But the only thing Trump values more than money is power, and if he can use his ever-vacillating trade “deals” to control other countries, he will. And while Trump’s policies may be fluid, manufacturing is not.
Nvidia is still shaped by the very globalization Trump yearns to quash. Silicon wafers used in the Blackwell GPU, Nvidia’s most advanced AI chip, are now being produced at TSMC’s facility in Arizona—but they still need to be sent to Taiwan to receive advanced packaging. Until Nvidia’s products are entirely produced in the U.S., the company is bound by international partnerships for which Trump has demonstrated little respect.
While cozying up to Trump may have put Huang in the room with world leaders who could make him millions, a snap of Trump’s fingers can make those deals disappear just as easily. In September, Nvidia pledged to play a major part of Britain’s Tech Prosperity Deal, but just last month, the Trump administration put the deal on hold, hoping to squeeze more out of the Brits.
