Nvidia fallout puts trade truce to the test as Xi welcomes Trump

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a tour of the National Archives Museum in Washington on Sept. 25. | Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Nov 12, 2026

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s third summit of the year with U.S. President Donald Trump is going off script before their meetings even get underway, as the spy allegations engulfing Nvidia’s Jensen Huang reopen old rifts.

For years, Huang had been most the prominent U.S. tech executive advocating for greater engagement with China as he lobbied for looser export controls on semiconductors. Now, bombshell accusations he conducted an affair with an alleged Chinese spy are giving lawmakers in Washington ammunition to tighten curbs, days before a major leaders’ summit in the Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen.

At stake is a yearlong trade truce between the world’s top economies expiring in January — its renewal hinges, in large part, on the U.S. pausing new restrictions on tech shipments to China. David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, on Wednesday signaled the furor was posing a test to bilateral relations during an already “bumpy” stretch.

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