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

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After ‘war’ sectretary Pete Hegseth faced impeachment calls due to the ongoing war in Iran, the latest cabinet secretary in the line of fire is Howard Lutnick. | World News

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.

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.

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