Schumer, Senate Democrats push for stricter rules on AI chip sales ahead of Xi visit

Top Senate Democrats are pushing for Congress to pass a trio of bills cracking down on AI chip sales to China as President Trump prepares to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) argued Wednesday that the U.S. should place stricter limits on the export of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment.

“We are calling on Trump to stand up for the nation’s security by once and for all blocking China’s access to our AI chips and manufacturing equipment,” Schumer said at a press conference.

“President Trump must draw a hard line,” he continued. “Do not weaken America’s export controls. Do not give China greater access to the advanced chips and chip-making equipment it needs to close the gap with the United States.”

Xi is set to arrive in Washington on Wednesday and meet with Trump on Thursday, and AI is widely expected to be on the agenda amid dire warnings from researchers about the technology’s risks to humanity.

Trump has repeatedly pointed to the need to stay ahead of China as he has brushed off calls for new AI guardrails. However, his approach to Beijing on chips has occasionally taken China hawks by surprise.

He announced last year that he would allow Nvidia to sell its H200 chips to China , drawing criticism from bipartisan lawmakers who voiced concerns that the administration was handing over America’s top technology.

Trump officials, as well as Nvidia, have countered that the H200s are several generations behind the latest chips and represent an opportunity to keep China dependent on U.S. chips while stifling Beijing’s semiconductor industry.

“If constantly the president is going to talk about this rivalry with China, he can’t in the same breath hand them our most sophisticated chips,” Slotkin said Wednesday. “It’s literally a giving away of our national security.”

She and her fellow Senate Democrats urged Republican leaders to move three bills — the Artificial Intelligence Oversight of Verified Exports and Restrictions on Weaponizable Advanced Technology to Covered High-Risk Actors (AI Overwatch Act), the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (Match Act) and the Chip Security Act.

The AI Overwatch Act , which was introduced by Warren and Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) in May, would block advanced chip exports to U.S. adversaries for 18 months and give Congress some oversight over export licenses.

Kim, alongside Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), introduced the Match Act in April. The measure would block the sale of essential chipmaking tools to countries of concern.

The Chip Security Act , put forward by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) last May, would require chips to incorporate security mechanisms to ensure they aren’t improperly diverted to restricted countries.

“This is not some idea that we have. It is actual legislation that we have ready to go,” Kim said Wednesday, adding, “We have legislation that is bipartisan and is something that can make a significant and meaningful impact on this.”