The policy ground just shifted beneath the semiconductor industry. Trump's administration is approving Nvidia licenses to export its H200 chips to China—the most powerful AI processors allowed across the border in years—reversing the containment strategy that defined the Biden era. But that decision collides immediately with congressional pushback. The House Foreign Affairs Committee just advanced legislation that would kill existing export licenses and hand Congress veto power over future sales. The 30-day window for this conflict is open now, and it changes everything about enterprise chip sourcing, Nvidia's China revenue calculus, and how tech companies think about geopolitical risk.

Trump's approval of Nvidia H200 exports marks a hard reversal from four years of tech containment policy. The announcement last week confirmed the administration would license sales of the H200—one of Nvidia's most powerful AI processors—to Chinese entities, provided the U.S. government captures 25% of proceeds. That's not subtle. It's a direct flip from the strategy that treated advanced semiconductor sales to China as a national security firewall.

The timing of congressional response tells you how urgent this inflection feels. The House Foreign Affairs Committee didn't wait for the new year to settle. This week, Rep. Brian Mast introduced and advanced the AI Overwatch Act, which would essentially veto Trump's authority on chip exports. The bill requires both House and Senate committees to approve any advanced chip licenses within 30 days. If they don't move, congressional hawks can block the sale through joint resolution. That transforms the export decision from an executive action into a legislative battlefield.

Here's what makes this more than typical Washington theater: The bill has bipartisan teeth. Mast (R-Fla.) chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China, is cosponsoring. This isn't just Democrats opposing the deal. It's Trump's own party, convinced that shipping cutting-edge AI chips to Alibaba and Tencent tilts toward national security risk rather than market advantage.

But inside the Trump administration, the argument runs exactly opposite. David Sacks, the White House AI and crypto czar, has already criticized the AI Overwatch Act for undermining Trump's authority. His framing: U.S. chip restrictions have been counterproductive. They've ceded ground to Chinese competitors, not prevented China from building AI capabilities. Better to keep U.S.-designed processors at the center of global AI infrastructure than to push China toward indigenous alternatives or circumvention strategies. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, has been making similar arguments to anyone who will listen—that restricting Nvidia's market access ultimately weakens American dominance.

So you have two completely different theories of leverage and timing colliding. One side believes restricted access buys security now. The other believes open access buys dominance later. And the decision window is literally 30 days from when Congress acts.

The H200 specificity matters here. Earlier, Trump had approved Nvidia's H20 chip exports to China, then restricted them just months later when pressure mounted. The H200 is a different calculation—it's the chip used in large-scale AI training and reasoning clusters. Military applications are plausible. That's why Senator Mark Warner called Trump's approach "haphazard and transactional." Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that China seeks these chips specifically for military modernization, weapons design, and AI surveillance. When Justice Department assessments back that claim, it's not theoretical hand-wringing.

Meanwhile, Chinese regulators have added a wrinkle that nobody expected. According to Reuters reporting last week, Chinese customs authorities have been instructed to block imports of H200 chips and warned tech companies against purchasing them unless absolutely necessary. That's the irony—Trump grants the license, but China's own government isn't letting the chips in. It suggests internal Chinese policy conflict about accelerating U.S. chip dependence or that there's pressure Beijing doesn't want to publicly acknowledge.

For different audiences, the timing calculus is brutal. Investors in Nvidia are watching a geopolitical risk premium get repriced in real time. If Congress blocks the H200 exports, Nvidia's China revenue thesis tightens significantly. If Sacks wins this argument and exports open up, Nvidia's growth narrative extends, but the stock carries new political risk. The market has 30 days to figure out which way this breaks.

Enterprise decision-makers are recalculating supply chain strategy as we speak. For the past four years, China market access for advanced chips was legally restricted. That assumption shaped everything from data center architecture to vendor diversification strategies. Now that assumption is in flux. Companies had to decide: Do we source for a restricted China market or a potentially open one? The answer changes procurement decisions immediately, not after Congress votes.

For tech professionals watching geopolitical tech trends, this is the moment the containment era ends—assuming Congress doesn't resurrect it. The question isn't whether export controls exist anymore. It's which version of strategic technology competition wins: Trump's transactional chip dominance approach or Congress's national security separation doctrine. That conflict resolves in weeks, not months.

The precedent matters here too. Trump has already flipped positions on chip exports once this cycle—the H20 approval followed by restriction demonstrated that consistency isn't the mode. That makes the congressional intervention feel urgent to his opponents. If you don't lock this down legislatively, the executive branch could shift again. That's why the AI Overwatch Act has real sponsors and real urgency. They're not waiting for a different president. They're trying to remove the tool from Trump's hands before the next reversal.

Trump's H200 export approval and the immediate congressional countermove represent the first real test of geopolitical tech policy under his administration. For investors, the next 30 days determine whether Nvidia's China revenue thesis expands or contracts. For enterprise decision-makers, supply chain assumptions need revision immediately—you can't wait for Congress to decide to replan your sourcing. For policy professionals, this is the inflection point where containment strategy either survives legislatively or gets overridden by administration doctrine. Watch the AI Overwatch Act vote count by end of February. If it gains bipartisan support beyond China hawks, congressional veto power sticks. If it stalls, Trump's transactional approach to chip access wins. That determines whether the next four years look like strategic separation from China's tech market or reintegration around U.S.-designed dominance.