House Foreign Affairs Committee grills witnesses as administration moves to license H200 chip sales to China

WASHINGTON — The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a public hearing on Jan. 14, 2026, to examine U.S. export-control policy after the administration moved to license sales of NVIDIA’s H200 chips to China. Lawmakers from both parties pressed three national-security witnesses on whether licensing advanced AI chips risks eroding a U.S. advantage in military and commercial artificial intelligence.

Chairman Mast opened the hearing by saying the goal was "winning the AI arms race against the Chinese Communist Party," and previewed his bill, the AI Overwatch Act, to create additional congressional guardrails on sales of cutting‑edge chips. The chair also submitted for the record a Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) final rule issued Jan. 13, 2026, that he said includes restrictions barring sales to military end users.

The committee heard from three witnesses: Matt Pottinger, former deputy U.S. national security adviser; Orin Cass, founder and chief economist at American Compass; and John Feiner, former principal deputy U.S. national security adviser. All three told the panel that limiting access to advanced compute has been a decisive…