Senators mainly cite the national security concerns of sending AI tech to China, but also note that the US Constitution says, ‘No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.’
Democratic senators say President Trump’s plan to take a 15% cut of Nvidia and AMD’s AI chip sales to China appears to be illegal.
In a Friday letter to Trump, six lawmakers questioned the legality of his plan and urged the president to “reverse” his decision to let Nvidia and AMD export their AI GPUs to China.
“These sales to a leading adversary run counter to US national security interests, and the collection of fees appear[s] to violate US statutes and may even be unconstitutional,” they wrote.
The senators—Mark Warner of Virginia, Chuck Schumer of New York, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Chris Coons of Delaware, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—point to a US export law that prohibits the federal government from charging a fee for processing or considering an export license “or other authorization or other request.
