'China wins': Wall Street Journal challenges Trump on unexpected issue

In a headline proclaiming “China wins,” a conservative newspaper blasted President Donald Trump for firing the AI firm Anthropic from its defense contracts.

“President Trump on Friday banned Anthropic and its AI products from all government contracts, and the Communists must be cheering in Beijing,” wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board. “The Administration is making what is a modest dispute over the military uses of AI into a self-destructive show of brute political force that will hurt the U.S. military and the rest of the government.”

Describing Anthropic’s models as “cutting-edge” and approving that they did not want its models deployed for “mass domestic surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons that strike without a human in the decision loop,” the Journal speculated that Grok AI CEO Elon Musk is likely “pleased that Mr. Trump’s Anthropic ban may create an opening for his Grok AI to get the contracts.” While Musk may have won the battle for the Pentagon contract, however, the Journal argued “Anthropic doesn’t lack for patriotism. The company says it has left revenue on the table by cutting off firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party. It’s no small matter that a technology company has been willing to help the U.S. military in combat, a change from a decade ago when most of Silicon Valley viewed Pentagon contracts as complicity in imperialism.”

Despite Trump describing Anthropic as “some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company,” the Journal argued that at one point “an AI company with a progressive reputation and the Trump Pentagon largely agreed that America has to be defended with premiere technology. The Pentagon needs all the AI help in can get as the technology races ahead and China isn’t far behind. The People’s Liberation Army is the winner of the Anthropic ban.”

In contrast with the Journal, which believes Trump is not doing enough to make America competitive in the AI Cold War, many other members of Trump’s base fear he is doing too much to help the AI industry.

"it's reflective overall of what we are seeing from the populist right within Trump's movement,” wrote CNN’s senior reporter Steve Contorno. “People like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have been very vocally against how much power Trump is giving to these tech companies, and it's reflective of changing views overall by the general population."

Axios reporters Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote that "Trump is flooring the gas pedal at the very moment some of his most ardent MAGA backers are warning AI could destroy the working-class Americans who brought him to power.”

They added, "The fear is that AI and AI-powered robots will eat vital American jobs before the nation has time to prepare the U.S. workforce for sci-fi-level change.”