The problem with this theory is that Trump is one of the people who comes out looking bad here, and now that his party has lost the legislative branch, he's very vulnerable. You can be sure the Democrats are going to investigate what he knew, and when. According to The New York Times reporting, one of the reasons Trump didn't take action was that he didn't want to disrupt Nvidia's chip sales.

Recall that, in exchange for the US lifting export restrictions, Trump negotiated an agreement with Nvidia to receive 25% of the revenue from certain chip sales[1].

Trump prioritizing money over national security is not at all surprising.

There was some speculation that Rubio was the one who leaked this, as he had prepared a memo about Alice Huang that was presented to the president in May.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/trump-nvidia-h200-china-ai-c...