Bessent Faults Commerce Department Over Nvidia Chip Blacklist Delay

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he has pushed "for months" to add Megaspeed, a Chinese-linked data company, to the U.S. export blacklist that would stop Nvidia from shipping advanced chips to Beijing, telling CNBC on Friday that the delay sits with the Commerce Department, according to The Guardian's live US politics coverage.

The dispute broke into public view days after a photograph showed Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick standing together behind President Trump at an Oval Office event, the kind of staged unity that masked a sharper disagreement playing out behind the scenes. Axios had reported earlier in the week that Bessent confronted Lutnick directly over the stalled blacklist, the Guardian noted in its rolling coverage.

What did Bessent tell CNBC?

Bessent said he has favored putting Megaspeed on the blacklist "for months," framing the holdup as a bureaucratic one rather than a policy disagreement. Pressed on why the designation has not moved forward, he turned the question back on the agency that handles it.

"You will have to ask them about their internal process."

The remark, delivered in a Friday CNBC interview, is the clearest public signal yet of friction between the two cabinet departments over how aggressively to restrict advanced chip sales to China.

Why does Megaspeed matter to the chip export fight?

Megaspeed is a data company whose executive has been described as an alleged Chinese spy, according to the Guardian's reporting. Its presence on a trade blacklist would carry practical weight for Nvidia, since U.S. export rules generally bar American firms from selling advanced semiconductors to blacklisted entities. Keeping Megaspeed off the list, by extension, has left a channel open for Nvidia hardware to reach Chinese buyers through the company, which is the crux of Bessent's complaint.

Who actually controls the blacklist decision?

Bessent's own answer was blunt: Commerce "has the pen." The Bureau of Industry and Security, housed inside the Commerce Department, is the agency that formally adds entities to the export control list, which is why Treasury's preference alone cannot force the designation through. That structural reality is what turned a policy disagreement into an interagency standoff, with Bessent publicly signaling impatience while declining to detail what, if anything, Commerce has told Treasury about the holdup.

What happens when Lutnick testifies?

Lutnick is set to testify on Capitol Hill in December over the broader Nvidia fallout, the Guardian reported, a hearing that calls for his appearance had already been building pressure for before Bessent's CNBC comments. Lawmakers are expected to press him on why Megaspeed has not been blacklisted and what Commerce's internal process looks like, the same question Bessent said reporters should put to the department directly.

By the numbers

• Friday, Nov. 13, 2026: date of Bessent's CNBC remarks
• December 2026: scheduled month for Lutnick's Capitol Hill testimony

Neither department has publicly detailed a timeline for resolving Megaspeed's status, and Commerce has not issued a public response to Bessent's characterization of the delay, per the Guardian's live coverage.