I called some CEOs yesterday to get their thoughts on Nvidia and AMD’s deal to give the U.S. government a 15% cut of AI chip sales to China to secure export licenses. Most were surprisingly sanguine about the unusual arrangement.

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their revenues from semiconductor sales to China in exchange for export licenses, an unprecedented quid pro quo arrangement aimed at solidifying America’s AI business dominance while maintaining trade ties with China.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday suggested he might allow Nvidia to sell a scaled-down version of its next-generation advanced GPU chip in China, despite deep-seated fears in Washington that China could harness U.