ICYMI: Senator Coons leads senior Democrats accusing Trump of failing to stand up to China

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) led a group of senior Democratic senators in raising alarm ahead of President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, highlighting in particular the White House’s failure to halt China’s access to American AI technology. As industry leaders raise concerns about AI’s dangers and China shows increasing aggression toward the United States and our allies and partners, President Trump has refused to take any action to bar China from accessing the American-designed AI chips it needs to sustain its AI innovation pace. In the statement, the senators describe the increasing ways China is threatening American security and our economy, helping Iran and Russia, and encroaching on our allies. They contrast those actions with President Trump’s warm welcome of President Xi with an extravagant state visit and lay out a set of priorities President Trump must accomplish during the summit and beyond to protect American interests. In addition to Senator Coons, the letter is signed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance. The Hill : Trump failing to block China’s access to American AI technology, say senior Senate Democrats A group of Senate Democrats on Tuesday said President Trump is failing to block China from accessing sensitive American technology to accelerate its development of artificial intelligence, ahead of the Chinese leader’s state visit to Washington this week. Trump must close loopholes that China has used to subvert U.S. export bans on sensitive American technology, the lawmakers wrote in a joint statement obtained exclusively by The Hill. It was signed by Democrats with senior positions on the Senate panels for the armed services, foreign affairs, intelligence and banking. “China is accelerating its drive for AI dominance by exploiting weaknesses in the administration’s export controls to access advanced chips and manufacturing equipment,” they wrote. “President Trump must reverse course. He must end China’s access to the advanced chips and manufacturing equipment it needs to build dangerous AI systems.” … The lawmakers also pushed Trump to hold Xi to account for Chinese companies reportedly providing Iran with intelligence to target U.S. troops in the Middle East; confront Xi’s pressure campaign against Taiwan; and punish Beijing for its support to Russia in its war against Ukraine. “We can’t let President Xi leave stronger than when he arrived. That is not diplomacy, it’s weakness,” the statement said. … In November, Trump paused for one-year an expanded Commerce Department blacklist of companies prohibited from buying U.S. technology goods, including semiconductor manufacturing equipment, as part of a deal with China when he met Xi in South Korea. The expanded blacklist included firms more than 50 percent owned by companies already sanctioned by the U.S., and largely targeting Chinese companies and subsidiary firms located in other countries. Trump has also granted China permission to buy hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips, Nvidia’s H200, and small batches have reportedly started entering mainland China in August. Opponents of that deal say that the advantage it gives China in technology development is not worth the economic benefit to American companies. The full statement is available here .