By Jarrett Renshaw and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON/BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -Nvidia's planned resumption of sales of its H20 AI chips to China is part of U.S. negotiations on rare earths, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday,

American chipmaking giant Nvidia says it plans to resume sales to China of an artificial intelligence chip that’s become part of a global race pitting the world’s biggest economies against each other.

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said the US’s reversal of restrictions on sales of chips to China followed recent trade negotiations with Beijing over rare earths. President Donald Trump curbed exports of Nvidia’s H2O artificial intelligence chips to China in April as part of an escalation of his trade war with Beijing.