Will Nvidia be allowed to sell more chips to China? This former Trump economic adviser has a hot take.

When Nvidia ( NVDA ) CEO Jensen Huang arrives at the state dinner on Thursday between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, you better believe he'll be hoping to get a sense of when — and to what extent — his business may resume in China.

Both sides coming to a deal on this front won't be easy, given the politics still at play.

"My personal opinion is that we need to have as much competitive advantage here in the United States as we can, because we've got competitive disadvantages against China," said Gary Cohn, IBM ( IBM ) vice chair and former economic adviser to President Trump in his first term, on Yahoo Finance's Sozzi Unleashed . "You know, they don't have environmental issues. They don't have a cost of capital. They can build data centers wherever they want. The citizens can't stand up and say not in my backyard."

Cohn added, "To the extent that the Chinese have all these other significant advantages, the one advantage we have is we've got the chips, and we've got the chip manufacturing here. I'd like to keep that advantage as long as we can. "

The Trump administration has allowed Nvidia to ship its H200 AI chips to approved customers in China. The problem for Nvidia: The H200 is already an older-generation product, trailing Nvidia's current Blackwell chips in terms of performance.

In other words, Nvidia is likely leaving billions in sales on the table by being unable to get Blackwell chips into China to feed the country's AI startup scene.

Chinese authorities, however, have so far restricted shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips.

While Nvidia hasn't factored any sales from China into its outlook for the year, the stock is still up 21% year to date, powered by the AI boom here in the US.

Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor, host of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast, and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi , Instagram , and LinkedIn . Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.