That's not what happens. What happens is that the government comes out with something like "Hey, we don't want you to sell AI chips to China". Then with some be

That's not what happens. What happens is that the government comes out with something like "Hey, we don't want you to sell AI chips to China". Then with some beauracratic process - which almost certainly involves consulting with chip manufacturers - invents a set of rules get drawn. Then nVidia produce a SKU of their chip (note: not a new chip, a variant of one that clearly breaches the rules) that exactly matches the letter of regulation, but not the intent of the regulation. Now, the reasonable thing to do as the regulator - is to acknowledge that the company you were asking for compliance from is acting in a hostile manner and modify the regulation to punitively clamp down on everything they're doing. What I'm saying is that if I were the US in this situation I would be happily inviting nVidia to comply with the new rules that allows them to export anything above 100nm. Nvidia had their shot at meeting the regulation - the spirit not the letter, they blew it, they can live with the consequences.