The Tech Download: Trump's China visit left chip export issue unresolved, with rare earths deal still uncertain

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One look at the roster of U.S. execs that cozied up to U.S. President Donald Trump on the 20+ hours flight from Alaska to China on Wednesday and you get a sense of the American delegation's key focus in Beijing. 

Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Tesla's Elon Musk and Apple's Tim Cook were all onboard, as were execs from Meta, Micron, Qualcomm and Coherent. It's fair to assume tech was a topic that came up on the trip.

The visit got off to a strong start for the group of execs, with Chinese President Xi Jinping saying that China would open up to U.S. businesses. Execs also had their chance to make a pitch directly to the Beijing premier, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The U.S. business leaders had the "opportunity yesterday in a meeting with President Trump and President Xi to come in and talk a little bit about their companies," Greer said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Friday. He specifically name-checked Nvidia's Jensen Huang as being there.

But — and this is a big but for the Nvidia chief — Greer added that there was no talk of "chip exports controls at the [bilateral] meeting."

A licensing deal for Nvidia's H200 chips would be "politically explosive" and trigger a "fierce backlash from China hawks" in Congress, Heidi Crebo-Rediker, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNBC earlier in the week.

Despite potential opposition at home, Reuters reported on Thursday that Washington had cleared sales of Nvidia's H200 AI chips to several major Chinese technology firms, citing three people familiar with the matter. 

There's also a reluctance to become reliant on Nvidia's chips on the Chinese side. 

"As to whether the Chinese are going to buy [U.S. chips] or not, they're making their own determinations," said Greer. "They're very committed to domestic production, they often see U.S. high tech as a threat to them. If we're ahead of the game on AI chips…sometimes they feel that can stop their own growth."

The other key tech area many expected would come up was U.S. access to critical and rare earth minerals — of which China controls the vast majority of the market. 

Beijing's chokehold on critical and rare earth minerals was a key factor in the country's retaliation against U.S. tariffs in 2025, curbing some exports before a trade truce came into effect.

While the agreement runs until this fall — which Greer described as "solid" — there is uncertainty over whether the truce would be extended. "We'll see about that," he said when asked.

"There's certainly a willingness on both sides, that if this continues to work out well for each country, to continue that and to extend this ability to make sure we're getting rare earths," Greer said. He added that though the U.S. has seen rare earths from China come up to "better levels, sometimes it's slow."

An extension of that agreement would be the "best-case outcome" for U.S. access to critical and rare earth minerals, said Crebo-Rediker. "The U.S. and its allies cannot out-mine, out-process or outspend China quickly enough to rebuild resilience in the near term."

It's likely negotiations will continue on this front — one of the most sensitive topics between the two countries — well into the summer. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the table again if Xi heads to the States for the return trip in September.

Defense tech startup Anduril on Wednesday said it raised $5 billion, doubling its valuation to $61 billion in a funding round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to "drive onto a flooded roadway," according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's website.

Google's Threat Intelligence Group said in a report on Monday that it thwarted an effort by hackers to use AI models to "plan a mass vulnerability exploitation operation."

OpenAI said Monday it would grant the European Union access to its new cyber model, but Anthropic is still holding out on releasing Mythos to the bloc.

Cerebras Systems had a huge Wall Street debut, with the chip company ending its first day trading with a market cap of just below $100 billion.

President Xi on Thursday told American CEOs travelling with President Donald Trump that the door to business in China will "open wider," state-backed newspaper Xinhua reported.

Music to the ears of the execs in attendance — but only time will tell what that means practically for American businesses looking to expand in the country.