--- title: "Trump Flies to Shenzhen as Nvidia’s Fallen Chief Becomes a Question He Won’t Ask" description: "Analysts expect the Jensen Huang spy scandal to leave next week’s Trump–Xi talks untouched, and see the reckoning coming in 2027" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-11-12T14:48:10Z modified: 2026-11-13T00:30:19Z url: https://rews.cc/a/trump-flies-to-shenzhen-as-nvidia-s-fallen-chief-becomes-a-q-95766a language: en tags: ["trump", "china", "nvidia", "ai", "chips", "us", "asia"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Trump Flies to Shenzhen as Nvidia’s Fallen Chief Becomes a Question He Won’t Ask *Analysts expect the Jensen Huang spy scandal to leave next week’s Trump–Xi talks untouched, and see the reckoning coming in 2027* By Jan Sokol · November 12, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/trump-flies-to-shenzhen-as-nvidia-s-fallen-chief-becomes-a-q-95766a ## In brief - Trump is due to meet Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18–19, their fourth meeting since his return - Nvidia said Jensen Huang will step down as CEO amid scrutiny of his relationship with suspected Chinese intelligence asset Alice Huang - Trump has defended Huang and said he does not expect to raise the scandal with Xi - Analysts expect little immediate change in US-China ties; China’s Foreign Ministry accused the US of fabricating spy claims - Senators Warren and Coons demanded that records on Nvidia chip exports to China be preserved, and analysts expect pressure to rise in 2027 Next week the president of the United States flies to Shenzhen, in southern China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he is due to sit down with Xi Jinping. As [Nils Adler reported for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/12/trump-heads-to-china-amid-nvidia-scandal-will-he-get-tougher-on-beijing), the meeting comes while one of Donald Trump’s closest friends in Silicon Valley is falling. The summit runs on November 18 and 19. It will be the fourth meeting between the two leaders since Trump returned to office. The friend is Jensen Huang. In May he was on the plane to Beijing, a late addition to the delegation, there to help unblock sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips. On Thursday Nvidia announced that he would step down as chief executive. He is [the only chief the company has ever had](https://rews.cc/a/nvidia-s-board-meets-on-jensen-huang-s-fate-and-the-stock-dr-38d4af). His fall began with a woman: Alice Huang, a former executive of the company Megaspeed, whom US officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. Jensen Huang has admitted to a romantic relationship with her. The two are not related. On Sunday Nvidia’s board opened [an independent investigation](https://rews.cc/a/nvidia-board-hires-ex-prosecutor-joon-kim-to-investigate-jen-1f6ddf). Beijing denies the allegations. Nobody has publicly confirmed that she worked for Chinese intelligence, and nobody knows whether she got anything of value from him. ![A black jacket hangs over a cream chair with a broken leg, set against a teal background with a large orange airplane silhouette.](https://rews.cc/img/768c852ed7ed7e7615500b42e4b5578e7ab3ff96.webp) ## An honourable guy The president has stood by him throughout and calls Huang an “honourable guy.” Trump said he spoke to Huang on Monday and that Huang denied knowing that the woman, with whom he had admitted an extramarital affair, “was a spy” for China, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/09/trump-jensen-huang-nvidia-chinese-spy.html). Reporters asked whether he would raise the matter with Xi in Shenzhen. “I don’t think so,” he said. He also said he would [“certainly take” Huang](https://investinglive.com/news/trump-eyes-xi-putin-meeting-at-apec-on-iran-war-says-he-d-certainly-take-huang/) on the trip, even though no one has confirmed who will be in the delegation. A reflection, and only that: in any court, the ruler’s loyalty to a falling favourite tells you less about the favourite than about how much the ruler had invested in him. ## The chip that opened the door Huang had invested a great deal too. For a long time he lobbied Washington to loosen the limits on selling advanced chips to China, arguing that the wider American technology spreads, the longer America keeps its lead in artificial intelligence. In December 2025 Trump approved sales of the H200, Nvidia’s second-most powerful chip, to China, with 25 percent of the proceeds going to the US government. China hawks in both parties objected. The chips barely moved even so. Beijing slowed its import approvals to protect its own chipmakers, and the May trip produced no announced breakthrough. Some of the chips found their way anyway. AFP found procurement notices showing that a Chinese university tied to the defence establishment bought H200s through a third party in September and October. The Information has separately reported that Alice Huang and her associates helped arrange at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chip shipments to Chinese companies. ![A dark blue padlock with cream arches stands among three yellow computer chips against a bright blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/0f7ae6b777c7f1c38748cbe4da5a5000055f83dc.webp) ## A stalemate at best Will the scandal make the president tougher on Beijing? The analysts consulted by Al Jazeera mostly said no, or not yet. Steve Okun, a geopolitical analyst based in Singapore, expects little change in a relationship he called “a stalemate at best.” He sees a bigger risk in the diversion and quiet spread of AI products through formal and informal trade if American restrictions stay in place. Gabriel Wildau, a managing director at Teneo, said Trump “shows no sign that he intends to disrupt the current US-China rapprochement,” while adding that he “may face new pressure from Congress and hawkish voices inside his administration.” Carsten Holz of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said Trump “would not seem to have a coherent China policy,” which makes his conduct in Shenzhen hard to forecast, and that Huang’s personal affairs “will be of little relevance.” ## Beijing’s answer China’s Foreign Ministry turned the accusation around. At a briefing on Thursday its spokesperson, Mao Ning, said Washington “should stop fabricating such ‘spy’ narratives as a pretext for imposing a technological blockade,” [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/11/12/china-says-us-fabricating-nvidia-spy-claims-to-justify-tech-blockade). In the same breath she said China was willing to work with the United States on carrying out the consensus the two leaders had reached. The same day, shares in the Chinese GPU makers Moore Threads, MetaX and Cambricon rose by almost 10 percent. Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, said China “has no interest in not engaging with Trump,” given how badly it wants Nvidia’s GPUs. Both governments, in other words, have reasons to look past the affair. ![Two hands hold navy and red teacups filled with golden liquid above a large navy microchip with gold pins on a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/1a9981279484fdc41e70fe5955f8519457e231ba.webp) ## The ledger for 2027 Washington may not let them. Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress in January, and Su called a hard line on AI and China “one of the rare political consensuses domestically across the aisle,” adding that Trump “will do whatever he can to protect his contribution and legacy on this matter.” Lawmakers had already [demanded answers from Huang](https://rews.cc/a/congress-wants-jensen-huang-to-explain-a-customer-who-was-re-1cb8b3). On Wednesday the Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to preserve every record on Nvidia chip exports to China. The episode, they wrote, “raises significant concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export controls.” Those concerns point back into the administration. Axios reported that Lutnick stalled a planned crackdown on firms suspected of funnelling Nvidia chips to China. According to CNN, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick over the Commerce Department’s reluctance to put Megaspeed on the Entity List, which bars American firms from supplying companies seen as security risks. Megaspeed denies wrongdoing and calls itself a “compliant and legal company.” The Council on Foreign Relations has [set out the foreign-policy stakes](https://www.cfr.org/articles/nvidia-chinese-espionage-and-the-ai-race-four-foreign-policy-issues-to-watch) of Huang’s departure. Holz said it was “not new information” that advanced Nvidia chips in Singapore data centres were serving customers on the mainland. Okun listed what could come next: Congress passing the Remote Access Security Act, aimed at Chinese access to advanced chips through the cloud; Commerce imposing export controls on Megaspeed; licence requirements for advanced chips sent to countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. Any of these, he said, would strain relations in 2027, “but that’s not going to happen next week.”