Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD) are lobbying US President Trump's administration to stop lawmakers from curbing exports to China, Politico reports citing sources; asking that lawmakers hold off on the China-related chip export restriction in the defence bill.

Chipmakers lobbying against export curbs tucked into defence legislation follows a well-worn pattern: restriction language has repeatedly been attached to must-pass bills, and industry pushback at the drafting stage has historically diluted or delayed provisions rather than killed them outright, since the national security framing tends to carry bipartisan momentum. The actors here have prior form: Nvidia and AMD have both navigated successive rounds of China export rules by designing compliant product variants, which has historically softened the revenue hit relative to the initial headline reaction. The distinction worth drawing is between a hard statutory ban and a licensing regime, as the former removes discretion while the latter leaves the executive branch room to calibrate, and the lobbying ask appears aimed at preserving that discretion. What matters next is whether the language survives committee markup and floor votes, and whether the administration signals support for the carve-out or sides with congressional hawks. For the stocks, the established pattern is that headline risk around China exposure fades once the final text shows workable compliance paths, but provisions that pass into law tend to be followed by tightening iterations rather than rollback.