The problem is putting US allies like Lithuania and Poland in the same tier as communist countries like Laos or Vietnam.
I'd put it another way, if demand is below the cap, then why have the cap? Why destroy relations for free? It's not like you can't do something if they are found to sell chips to China.
So that companies in less reliable countries like Lithuania couldn't purchase high numbers of GPU and resell them to Russia/China/etc. through countries like Kazakhstan etc. (like they do now with other products).
> if demand is below the cap, then why have the cap?
It might be for Lithuania. But the same 50,000 cap applies to Poland.
Anyway:
> Individual companies headquartered in tier two countries—for [...] can access significantly higher limits if they apply for their own national validated end user status. That process involves making verifiable security commitments, [...]. If a company obtains this status, its chip imports won’t count toward the country’s overall maximum cap
I'd put it another way, if demand is below the cap, then why have the cap? Why destroy relations for free? It's not like you can't do something if they are found to sell chips to China.