Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during a reception at the Great Hall of the People to mark Martyrs Day, September 30, 2025 (Adek Berry/Getty Images)

China steps up customs crackdown on Nvidia chips, launches antitrust investigation into Qualcomm, and plans special port fees on US ships

Beijing is doubling down on protectionism ahead of a planned Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meeting set for later this month.

David Crowther

10/10/25 5:56AM

For months now, China has been getting increasingly defensive over its domestic industries, particularly the all-important AI hardware space. This morning, we got the latest measures from those continued efforts.

First, the Financial Times reported that China has mobilized teams of agents at major ports across the country to “carry out stringent checks on semiconductor shipments.” The initial goal is reportedly to stop local tech companies from buying Nvidia chips, most notably the tech giant’s H20 and RTX Pro 6000D models, which Beijing has become particularly focused on stopping from entering the country. According to the FT, one person familiar with the matter also said that the more rigorous enforcement had been widened to all advanced semiconductor products.

Separately this morning, news broke that chip giant Qualcomm was the subject of a new antitrust investigation from China’s State Administration for Market Regulation over its acquisition of Israel’s Autotalks. Qualcomm fell 3% in early trading. In September, Nvidia itself fell foul of the same Chinese regulator over a 2020 acquisition.

Outside of AI, China is also planning to impose special import fees on vessels owned by US individuals, companies, or organizations, in a retaliatory move to a similar policy the US revealed back in April.

Per The Wall Street Journal, vessels docking at Chinese ports will be charged 400 yuan per net ton from October 14. That’s equivalent to ~$56. That fee is also set to rise over time, hitting 640 yuan per net ton in April 2026, 880 yuan the year after, and 1,120 yuan from April 2028.

The escalation of trade tensions between the world’s two most important economies comes ahead of a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, slated to take place at the end of the month at the APEC summit. Yesterday, CNN reported that Beijing had ramped up sweeping restrictions on rare earth exports.

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It sucks to be close to OpenAI right now

There’s a common thread between what’s ailing some different parts of the AI trade right now:

A high-profile relationship with OpenAI is a millstone around your neck. The ChatGPT maker is seemingly getting bested by Google’s Gemini 3 (and knows it) while burning a lot of cash, with no end to the red ink in sight.

Such millstone-afflicted parties include:

Investing conglomerate SoftBank has tumbled 9.9% and 10.8% in its two most recent trading days in Japan. SoftBank is a useful way to express a view on how OpenAI is doing because the Masayoshi Son-led firm is poised to own about 11% of the company, and increases in its valuation have been a big driver of SoftBank’s growth in net income. SoftBank sold its entire $5.8 billion stake in Nvidia in October, likely to finance what it owes OpenAI to build its position in that privately held company.
Oracle has the dubious distinction of getting battered across two different asset classes thanks to OpenAI. Remember: traders loved Oracle’s massive cloud-revenue backlog in the abstract. When the specifics were revealed and much of that sales pipeline was down to a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, that was when the stock peaked. More recently, credit default swaps tied to Oracle’s debt have also widened significantly, as the company’s infrastructure build-out is launching to fulfill demand from OpenAI, a customer that’s considered to be significantly less creditworthy.
The AI chip business of Advanced Micro Devices had a major breakthrough in October, securing a deal to sell multiple generations of its flagship GPUs for “tens of billions” in revenue. But... OpenAI was once again the customer. This was quickly followed by a separate announcement that 50,000 of its AI chips would be deployed in data centers run by Oracle starting in the second half of next year, likely de facto representing a further enmeshing of its relationship with OpenAI.
Microsoft has a tighter partnership with and bigger equity position in OpenAI than SoftBank. On the other hand, it also has its own successful core business, which significantly dilutes any OpenAI “signal,” so to speak. It’s the second-worst publicly traded hyperscaler in November, down almost double digits and trailing only Oracle.

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Ukraine peace talks send oil prices down, boosting major airline stocks

Oil prices are tanking on Tuesday, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures down about 2.8% amid reports that Ukraine has agreed to the framework of a possible peace deal with Russia.

A Kyiv official told Reuters that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy could visit the US to finalize the agreement in the next few days.

When crude falls, airlines tend to take off, and Tuesday’s market movements are sticking to that trend. Shares of major US airlines surged on oil’s price action, with discount carriers JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, and Frontier seeing the largest gains. The remaining members of the big four also rose, with United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines all up as well.