Tag: United States Politics and Government

China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data Centers

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A state-owned newspaper in China recently published a satellite image of a data center in Gainesville, Va., writing in English that the development of artificial intelligence posed a threat to Americans’ physical and financial well-being. A comic strip made to look as if it had been published by a Maryland news outlet — created with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by people in China, the tech company said — circulated on X this year, blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills. It showed a tycoon smoking a cigar and clutching bags of cash.…

America Was Being Played. The Bessent Doctrine Says Those Days Are Over.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered a remarkably important speech on June 23 at the Economic Club of New York. Yet neither Wall Street nor most of the economic profession seems to have paid it enough attention. By laying out what until now seemed more like haphazard policy measures, Mr. Bessent put down a marker for how the United States plans to operate in a changing global economic system. In the process, he elevated both the scale and the scope of a systemic change that started in earnest during President Trump’s…

U.S. Declines to Renew USMCA Trade Deal, Starting 10-Year Clock to Expiration

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The Trump administration on Wednesday declined to renew the trade deal President Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term, a pact that he later came to criticize. The decision, though expected, was an important symbolic move for a trade deal the United States is currently trying to renegotiate. The move started a decade-long clock to the deal’s expiration, unless the three countries unanimously decide to renew it. The text of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement required the three countries to jointly meet to review the agreement six years after…

Kazakhstan’s Leader Deepens U.S. Ties, Saying Trump Was ‘Sent by Heaven’

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The skyline of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, is a physical reflection of the Central Asian nation’s approach to foreign affairs. A sign reading “Moscow” sits atop a Kazakh-Russian business center. Beside it is a pagoda-crowned luxury hotel owned by the Chinese state oil company. Nearby is a gleaming hotel tower and shopping mall, emblazoned with the American brand Ritz-Carlton. And they all exist in the shadow of Abu Dhabi Plaza, the city’s biggest skyscraper, developed by a real estate firm from the United Arab Emirates. It is the product…

The Real A.I. Race Isn’t America vs. China

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A globally recognizable tech executive, high-spirited from preparing for a public offering, offers imprudent remarks criticizing the government. The state strikes back harder than anyone expects. Overnight, the bargain between a skyrocketing sector of the economy and the government is shattered. If you think this story could be about Anthropic, you’re only half right. In 2020, the Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma found himself in the doghouse after he publicly rebuked Chinese regulators. Citing regulatory concerns, the authorities canceled the public offering of Ant Group, another company Mr. Ma helped found,…

Alibaba Sues Pentagon Over China Military Label

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Alibaba, one of China’s most valuable technology companies, sued the U.S. Department of Defense, challenging the Pentagon’s decision to designate it as a company affiliated with the Chinese military. Best known internationally for its e-commerce business, Alibaba has also become a major cloud-computing provider and one of China’s leading developers of advanced artificial intelligence systems. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in the Northern District of California, the company said it had no ties to the Chinese military and argued that the Pentagon had acted unlawfully…

Taiwan’s President Says He Trusts Trump to Approve Arms Sales

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President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan voiced “high hopes” on Thursday that President Trump would approve $14 billion in arms orders for the island, downplaying concerns raised last month when Mr. Trump suggested U.S. military support for Taiwan was negotiable, unsettling longstanding American policy. Mr. Lai gave an optimistic take on Taiwan’s standing with the United States, which has taken a blow since Mr. Trump said in May that U.S. weapons sales were a “negotiating chip” with China and suggested that Mr. Lai was a source of instability across the Taiwan…

The Battle With Anthropic Is the Start of a New Kind of Conflict

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The Trump administration has spent the past week trying to end one war while pushing deeper into another. The first war, the Iran war, feels like the coda to an era; it seems unlikely that the United States will undertake another war for regime change in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Whereas the second war, the battle over Anthropic’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, is the beginning of a new kind of conflict, with private powers and national governments struggling to determine who actually rules an A.I.-dominated world. The…

The World Is Draining Oil Reserves, Raising Pressure for a Peace Deal

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The world is quickly depleting its stores of oil, putting more pressure on President Trump to reach a deal with Iran that would quickly get more fuel flowing out of the Persian Gulf. Vast stockpiles of oil, gasoline and other fuels have helped fill the hole in global energy supplies created by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. But those reserves, which companies and governments stash in giant steel storage tanks and underground salt caverns, are running low in some places. This week, U.S. government stockpiles were poised to hit their…

Top Pentagon Official Worked Closely With C.I.A. Officer Later Found With Gold Bars

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David J. Rush, the former C.I.A. officer found last month with $40 million in gold bars in his home and now under F.B.I. investigation, had powerful friends in government. It turns out that one of them, Stephen A. Feinberg, the deputy secretary of defense, even contacted the C.I.A. earlier this year asking to work more closely with him. Before the C.I.A. fired Mr. Rush, he and Mr. Feinberg worked together on a highly classified program focused on spying on China, according to the current and former officials. Mr. Feinberg reached…