Howard Lutnick asked to testify amid Nvidia scandal: Why US Commerce Secretary is under fire

It's been a heavy week for the Trump administration. Following the Nvidia row, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has now been called to testify before Congress. Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang with US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick at the G20 Innovation Ministerial summit, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina earlier this year (REUTERS)Lawmakers have called on the commerce secretary to detail what the Trump administration knew about former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman and Megaspeed director.

Track the latest updates on Nvidia here While authorities are still collecting information regarding Alice, intelligence officials from the US stated they have reason to believe that the Megaspeed director was spying for China.

With Lutnick now in the line of fire, two US cabinet secretaries are under scrutiny over their jobs. Before the Nvidia controversy, US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth faced calls for his impeachment due to the ongoing war in Iran.

And Hegseth's calls for impeachment were made just as the Republicans witnessed a major defeat in the crucial midterm elections. The spy scandal surrounding Nvidia's Jensen Huang has caused White House officials to deliberate on the future of Howard Lutnick's role as a cabinet secretary, Reuters reported.

The doubts raised by White House officials follow a growing number of lawmakers criticising Lutnick over the administration's refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist. Lawmakers have also questioned whether the government was properly overseeing Nvidia's exports to China.

Reuters reported in June that the Trump administration held ⁠off adding China’s AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker CXMT and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to a trade blacklist. With Megaspeed now suspected of providing Nvidia's AI chips to China, Lutnick has been slammed by many lawmakers.

"Secretary Howard Lutnick and Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler must explain why they have not closed export control loopholes and act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fueling China’s military," Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren said on social media.

Meanwhile, Republican senator John Kennedy told CNN that he was unsure if Lutnick should lose his job over the matter, but added that the incident was "as serious as an aneurysm." House Speaker Mike Johnson also said there was growing consensus in Congress to limit chip exports to China after the spy scandal led to the resignation of Nvidia's CEO.

Huang has previously pushed to preserve access to the Chinese market and has close ties with US President Donald Trump. Lawmakers also believe that Lutnick had not done enough to block AI chip shipments to China. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, also wrote to Lutnick on Thursday, saying they were investigating the administration's approval of sales of Nvidia's advanced AI chips to Chinese companies "with concerning links to the Chinese government, military, and sanctioned entities." The lawmakers also questioned Trump's decision to grant Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 AI chips to China in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the export sales, which they called "an unconstitutional export tax." Axios also reported that Lutnick had ​stalled Trump's crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia's chips to China.

As the spy scandal news hit, Lutnick met with treasury secretary Scott Bessent, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, trade representative Jamieson Greer, national security adviser and secretary of state Marco Rubio.