# Trump’s blunt warning gets it right: If America slows down AI, China wins for free

> Source: <https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/4726356/us-china-exploitation-ai-race-model-security-needs-control-extraction/>
> Published: 2026-09-15 14:00:00+00:00

President [Donald Trump](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/donald-trump) put the [artificial intelligence](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/artificial-intelligence) race in blunt terms Sunday: “whoever wins AI wins.” His comment came as [Anthropic](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/anthropic) CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to slow the development of increasingly capable frontier models and strengthen independent evaluation, industry coordination, and international safeguards.

Amodei’s warning deserves serious attention. But Trump is right about one strategic fact: a unilateral slowdown by American laboratories would not automatically slow Chinese competitors.

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