Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that Treasury, the War Department, USTR, and the State Department had supported adding Megaspeed to the trade-restriction entity list for several months. He said the decision ultimately belonged to the Commerce Department, led by Howard Lutnick, adding that “Commerce has the pen.” Megaspeed, led by Alice Huang, is under Justice Department investigation for suspected violations of U.S. export controls on chip shipments to China; the company reportedly shipped at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chips to China over two years. Lutnick has been criticized for delaying the blacklist decision, for opposing the cancellation of a $7 billion Oracle deal to lease 100,000 Nvidia chips to Tencent, and for his financial ties to Nvidia. He is scheduled to testify alongside Huang before the Senate Banking Committee on December 10, while White House officials are considering removing him from his post.
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