All posts tagged "china"

This Trump goon's bizarre threat sounds like it came from a drunk guy on a barstool

On Friday, Trump barred an American AI developer, Anthropic, from doing further business with the federal government, and barred all contractors from doing business with Anthropic — an extreme punishment typically reserved for adversarial countries.

Anthropic’s crime? Refusal to let the Department of Defense use its AI system, Claude, for surveilling American citizens or in autonomous weaponry that removes humans from decisions to kill.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — the man who group texted attack plans to a reporter, wanted to punish an astronaut for stating the law, then shot party balloons with potent lasers despite FAA warnings that the lasers could blind pilots while they were in the sky with passengers — demanded that Anthropic let him use its AI system without contractual restrictions. When Anthropic said no, Trump blacklisted them.

It’s hard to say what’s more appalling — that the Trump administration is building tools for mass public surveillance like China’s, or that an undisciplined dry drunk like Hegseth has access to lethal toys.

Keeping up with China … in the worst way

Trump has said he wants to keep up with China through “global technological dominance” and the “widespread use of AI.” China’s authoritarian government uses one of the most advanced public surveillance systems in the world, collecting extensive facial recognition, biometric data, and personal profiles from private citizens against their wishes.

China captures these data from citizens’ faces, conversations, social media posts, phones and other devices while people stand at crosswalks, ride the bus, and go to the store, then feeds the data into an AI database used for oppression: for law enforcement, “monitoring social behavior,” and controlling access to services.

China’s system is similar to what Trump oligarch-supporting Peter Thiel’s Palantir is building, namely, a high-level data integration platform that will enable U.S. law enforcement, ICE, the IRS, DHS, DOJ, the military, and any other rogue agency Trump wants to weaponize to collect facial recognition, license plate readers, and other biometric data for mass surveillance.

Poor Pete, nobody believes him

There were clauses in Anthropic’s contract with the DOD that prevented Claude from being used for either mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weaponry. While Anthropic had integrated Claude into some classified military networks, that $200 million contract expressly prohibited using it for mass surveillance of Americans as well as autonomous weaponry, “killer robots” that can identify, select, and kill targets without a human in the decision-making loop.

These were the contractual restrictions Hegseth’s DOD demanded be removed. But Anthropic wasn’t having it.

Just before Trump blacklisted them, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei said the company could not, “in good conscience” agree to the Pentagon’s request. Amodei has expressed concern that Claude could be used for mass surveillance by automatically assembling “scattered, individually innocuous data into a comprehensive picture of any person's life,” which seems to be exactly what Trump is trying to do.

In a series of angry social media posts, Undersecretary of Defense Emil Michael accused Anthropic of “lying” about using Claude for mass surveillance because the Dept. of Defense “doesn’t do mass surveillance as that is already illegal.”

Apparently the DOD does do comedy, because the suggestion that this regime will follow the law is a joke.

Forget about the hundreds of court orders Trump has already violated. How many people have been murdered off the coast of Venezuela with zero legal justification? Claiming without evidence that we’re in an "armed conflict" with "narco-terrorists" is not a legal justification; it’s a dictator’s “shoot now, ask questions never” strategy for breaking the law.

What can the AI do?

Most Americans are blissfully unaware of how the emerging AI landscape could change their lives, and not for the better. Since I’m no AI expert, I asked Google AI to explain in simple terms how Anthropic’s Claude, if left to Hegseth’s command, could be used to spy on Americans. Here’s how AI described Claude’s functional capacity, verbatim:

Mass Data Synthesis (Sorting Huge Amounts of Info): Imagine a super-fast robot reading billions of text messages, emails, and internet posts all at once. It looks for "moods" (like who is angry or unhappy) and makes a map of where those people live.
Intelligence Dossiers (Digital Secret Files): Using smart computer programs to read thousands of pages of documents about one person instantly. It acts like a digital detective, putting together a secret file on someone's whole life.
Automated Tracking (Digital Footprints): Looking at where people drive, what websites they visit, and who they talk to. This combines records to draw a map of where someone goes, like cameras on streets tracking cars.
Law Enforcement Support (Police Tech Tools): Companies like Palantir create software for the police. This software combines information from cameras, bank records, and phone calls to track suspects and help police find them quickly.

The dispute has put Silicon valley on edge. If Trump and Hegseth can change the terms of AI contracts after the fact, why sign contracts at all?

The regime’s dishonesty isn’t helping. Before Trump blacklisted Anthropic, Pentagon officials said they had “no interest” in using the illegal surveillance tools outlined above, while seeking unfettered access to them. Color me, and anyone with half a brain, skeptical.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Secretive 17-page executive draft handed off to Trump to derail election: WaPo

A secret 17-page draft has been circulating among pro-Trump activists and the White House that would potentially give President Donald Trump the path to "unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting," a The Washington Post report revealed Thursday.

The draft executive order claims that China interfered in the 2020 election, which would justify Trump declaring a national emergency, according to The Post. Trump has pushed a scheme to mandate voter ID and launch a ban on mail-in ballots for the midterm elections.

The pro-Trump activists tell The Post they expect the draft will play a role in Trump's "promised executive order." The White House has reportedly not commented.

Florida lawyer Peter Ticktin, who attended the New York Military Academy with the president, has been advocating for the draft executive order. In 2022, he was part of Trump's legal team in the unsuccessful lawsuit that included accusations that Democrats had colluded to damage his reputation by alleging that Trump conspired with Russia in his 2016 campaign.

“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” Ticktin told The Post.

“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin added. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”

Trump latest 'triumph' is really just a spotlight on a major failure: analysis

A political coup for Donald Trump has come back to bite him after it highlighted just how poor the president is at clear messaging.

Though the foreign policy win will see China back away from its involvement in the Panama Canal, the action itself will do little to win the Republican Party, or the president, much in the way of political gains at home. Trump had pushed for action to be taken against China at the start of his second term. Panamanian courts have since ruled that China's claim to ports in the Panama Canal is unconstitutional.

Writing in The Hill, Keith Naughton suggested the victory would be helpful for the Trump administration, but the lack of fanfare for the decision is telling.

He wrote, "Trump first demanded Chinese interests be ejected from involvement in canal operations at the start of his presidency. After a year of obstruction and demands by the Chinese Communist Party, the Panamanian Supreme Court rebuked China worse than Judge Smails rebuked his nephew Spalding in 'Caddyshack.'

"As a result, Chinese interests, which had managed the canal and its ports since 1997, had all contract rights terminated. By any measure, this is an outstanding foreign policy coup for Trump. But it’s a triumph from which he has gained practically nothing in the polls or among the media — and that’s an inexcusable messaging failure.

"The lack of political gain for this success in Panama is part of a larger problem. Trump and his team do not seem to have any public relations plan, no strategic or long-term messaging."

Part of the problem could be in how Trump uses Truth Social to administer policy and updates on news affecting the US. Naughton accused the president of having no strategy to detail administrative successes or changes. He continued, "Trump just posts on Truth Social and the larger administration echoes.

"That plan might work if Trump could stay on topic. But either he can’t or he won’t. His 3 a.m. stream of consciousness not only sends the media, government and Wall Street in any number or directions, it also breaks up any narrative from the day before — not to mention pushing his accomplishments into the background.

"It is an unconscionable waste by the president, who has completely disintermediated the establishment media in a way that no other public figure ever has. Trump’s ability to take his case directly to the public is unparalleled.

"Blaming messaging on your political woes is for losers, but Trump doesn’t seem to have any strategy at all."

This Trump claim is so absurd it deserves only absurdity in reply

In his recent Davos speech to world leaders in Switzerland, President Donald Trump chastised European countries for falling for the climate-change hoax and wasting billions of dollars on green-energy scams.

Trump sees himself on a crusade to disabuse the world of the greatest environmental con in history, having singlehandedly uncovered the Chinese climate-change hoax intended to undermine democratic countries’ economies. Countries around the globe began developing green-energy sources, reduced their reliance on fossil fuels, and undermined their countries’ energy stability. Now, Trump claims to be wisely moving the US in the opposite direction and taking the world with him.

A very nervous, twitchy fly on the Oval Office wall provided the following plausibly reliable information on Trump’s fever-dream aspirations for the next 100 days:

Beginning his crusade in the US, Trump will sue any newspaper spreading misinformation harmful to Americans that climate change fuels terrible natural disasters. As a case in point, Trump will sue any newspaper that has falsely linked the deadly winter storm currently gripping the US to warming temperatures in the Arctic caused by climate change.

“So warmer Arctic weather is causing frigid temperatures in the US,” Trump allegedly guffawed. “What kind of fools do the newspapers and their pseudo scientists take us for?” All newspapers will be forced to publicly retract every word linking the deadly storms to climate change to avoid a $10 billion lawsuit. “Lying to the American people is one thing I won’t tolerate,” said Trump.

Trump is also scrubbing false climate-change propaganda from America’s educational system, where he believes an entire generation of young Americans are being fed lies that climate change is this huge existential threat to the planet.

A recently enacted executive order requires that all units on climate change be deleted from public-school science textbooks and replaced by an EPA-provided unit entitled, “The Anti-Science Climate-Change Hoax.” In addition, wherever the term “climate change” may appear in any textbook across the curriculum, it must be referred to as “natural climate change,” Mother Nature’s climate change,” or “God-given climate change.”

Any school district not complying with the executive order will lose all federal funding and not be allowed to name any school after President Trump. In addition, board members will be investigated by FBI director Kash Patel for possible ties to the Chinese government.

Evidence of such ties may include a board member’s abnormal frequenting of Chinese restaurants, an unusual preoccupation with karaoke singing, or large amounts of made-in-China toys and appliances discovered through FBI search-and-seizure operations of board members’ homes.

“We will evaluate the evidence,” said Patel, “and never rush to judgment unless examples must be made.”

States will also feel the brunt of increasing green-energy production and/or reducing their reliance of fossil fuels. Executive orders will remove all federal funding for states’ green-energy programs, “cap” the amount of green energy-produced Kilowatt hours to 2025 levels, and cut off all green-energy heating in governors’ mansions.

In addition, oil-producing states will lose federal funding that don’t increase their oil production and refinement output by 15 percent annually. To ensure compliance, teams of federal agents may be sent to oil-drilling and refinement sites with the power to arrest protestors but without authority to shoot unless provoked by violence or unendurable humiliation.

Countries that continue to increase green-energy production will be slapped with additional US tariffs up to 50 percent. However, countries that increase fossil fuel-produced energy will be given “very generous terms” according to President Trump. For replacing green-energy sources with US-purchased oil, countries will receive a 15 percent reduction in established rates for US oil recently produced in Venezuela or confiscated by the US military from Venezuelan tankers.

President Trump is taking these critical steps for two reasons: to defeat China’s plan to weaken the democratic world through its climate-change hoax and to ensure the US’s energy independence through greater production and usage of fossil fuels.

According to Trump, “America and the rest of the world must dramatically increase our production and reliance on dependable, environmentally enriching fossil fuels or we’ll all be wearing Mao suits tomorrow, which doesn’t flatter my body type. It’s either ‘drill, baby, drill’ across the globe or Chow Mein and fortune cookies three meals a day.”

Trump’s crusade to expose man-made climate change as an abominable Chinese hoax is essential to changing worldwide public opinion and rescuing countries from self-inflicted destruction. If Trump is successful, he says, “The time will come when electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric plants are as popular universally as Crooked Joe Biden’s “Cup O’ Joe” coffee mugs.”

As Trump prophesizes, “The day will come when oil proudly rules the energy world once again, and no one’s in a better position to make a killing than the US. Take that to the bank.”

China bombards LinkedIn in 'astounding' effort to recruit US spies: experts

China is not recruiting its spies through meetings in dark alleys, nor by courtship over covert drinks. Rather, the intelligence agency and military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are using LinkedIn, the professional networking site, to send as many as 30,000 messages per hour to recruit spies, according to a new book, “The Great Heist: China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets.”

David R. Shedd, a former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), called the book he co-wrote with Andrew Badger, a former DIA case officer, “a real, urgent call” to Americans, from corporations to government, to better respond to China’s success in stealing tech and defense innovations.

“I still don't think America has woken up on how serious the problem is,” Shedd told Raw Story.

“We’ve got to take this much more seriously, but also much more urgently, in terms of responding to the threats, because I don't see any let-up by China.”

David R. Shedd (provided photo)

From nanotechnology to chip manufacturing and artificial intelligence, Shedd said, China succeeded in accomplishing ahead of time eight of 10 objectives under “Made in China 2025,” a 10-year national strategic plan by President Xi Jinping to turn his country into a global technology and manufacturing powerhouse.

China is now the leader in 37 out of 44 emerging critical technologies, according to Shedd and Badger.

“They are on a trajectory to overtake us and have overtaken us already in a number of areas, and that's only going to get worse,” Shedd said.

‘An enormous behemoth’

Shedd and Badger interviewed William Evanina, former director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center. He offered insight into the use of LinkedIn by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to contact intelligence targets.

Andrew Badger (photo provided by David Shedd)

“This astounding number — never before reported— showcases Beijing's commitment to mass recruitment that can be best described as a ‘flood the zone’ strategy,” the authors write.

“The MSS doesn't need all its targets to respond. Just a handful can be enough; a single successful recruit can make the entire endeavor worthwhile.”

Examples of LinkedIn outreach might include contacting an academic about writing a research paper or meeting a worker at a coffee shop to discuss their expertise, exchanges possibly unknowingly resulting in intelligence reported back to the MSS, the authors write.

“The MSS is the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, Cyber Command and all other cyber components,” Shedd said.

“It is an enormous behemoth of internal or domestic and international security, and over the … last 13 years, it has become one, if not a premier, service in terms of its capabilities.”

In response to Raw Story’s questions about the use of LinkedIn by the MSS and PLA, Autumn Cobb, a LinkedIn spokesperson, shared links about verification and spotting scams.

‘Threatens lives’

When it comes to China stealing intellectual property from Americans, the stakes are high.

“American military technologies once considered strategic advantages — stealth aircraft, silent propulsion systems, hypersonic missile platforms – are now widely found in the inventories of China’s armed forces,” Shedd and Badger write.

“These thefts are not abstract; they represent the very real threats to the American warfighters who one day may have to face down such advanced technology. The theft of these assets doesn't just threaten markets; it threatens lives.”

Corporations are also threatened.

When Tesla became the first foreign-owned automaker in China, with CEO Elon Musk building a factory in Shanghai from 2019, concerns rose about theft of intellectual property.

The Great Heist (provided image)

Shedd and Badger quote a former senior Tesla staffer: “Elon always worried about the so-called billion-dollar thumb drive. A single USB stick with the Autopilot source code. That was the nightmare.”

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

‘National security at stake’

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, Shedd said, an apparent “diminishment” of U.S national security policies on China has been observable, compared to the first Trump administration, which took China more seriously.

Shedd speculated that the shift has to do with China’s control of the majority of rare earth minerals, which are used in magnets manufacturing and technology.

President Xi is definitely watching how Trump has made taking over Greenland a priority, as well as Trump’s decision to “run” Venezuela after capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Shedd said.

“My fear is the administration has turned it into everything's transactional,” Shedd said.

“Our national security is at stake, and I … fully expect Xi Jinping to move on Taiwan next year.”

Taiwan is a major U.S. trading partner. In December, the Trump administration announced the largest-ever U.S. arms package for Taiwan, valued at $11 billion.

‘Great Heist’

Prior to Trump’s arrival in the White House, Chinese threats to American intelligence and national security were not a priority for the FBI or DIA, Shedd said.

During his tenure at DIA from 2010 to 2015, Shedd said, much of the agency’s focus was on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, concerns which became “all consuming.”

“There was this almost fear of taking on China operationally, and to really focus in on it was viewed in the FBI counterintelligence as second-rate to Russia,” Shedd said.

“China, I won't say it was a total afterthought, but it certainly wasn't the main focus.”

Shedd and Badger’s book explains how China pulled off its theft of so many American ideas, tracing the effort back to when President Bill Clinton advocated for China to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).

When China joined the WTO in 2001, both Democrats and Republicans had a “naivety” that China would “play by the rules of international trade,” Shedd said.

That set the stage for a flood of Chinese-made, cheaper versions of other country’s products.

“It was framed as diplomacy, as engagement with a potential trading partner, possibly even a future ally,” Shedd and Badger write.

“In hindsight, it was the moment the proverbial virus entered the global trade system and the launching pad for the CCP’s Great Heist against America.”

In 2017, China’s National Intelligence Law legalized espionage, meaning citizens could be required to spy for the CCP.

‘Counter Heist’

To take on China, Shedd said, the U.S. must invest in research and development as well as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, in which China is "leaping way ahead of us.”

Shedd and Badger also outline a seven-pillar “Counter Heist” strategy to put America on an “active counteroffensive” against China and disrupt the “Chinese espionage apparatus and to reassert America’s place as the world’s innovation superpower.”

If Washington doesn’t get ahead of Beijing’s spying, Shedd said, he fears China will beat the U.S. to a quantum computing breakthrough that will decode all cryptology.

“It will have enormous, dramatic implications for the United States and for the west more generally, and we won't ever have seen it coming,” Shedd said.

The Great Heist is out now

Trump admin plans to put nuclear plant on the moon

The Trump administration has been quietly expediting plans to put a nuclear plant on the moon in a geopolitical race with China and Russia to control the future of space.

NASA has awarded contracts to three companies to develop small nuclear reactors that could supply power in space by 2030, according to Politico which published a list of "under-the-radar developments" during President Donald Trump's first year in office during his second term.

The move was aimed to help prepare the United States for future space missions and could cost billions of dollars, although the space agency reportedly still needs to find the funding for the initiative.

Start-ups and aerospace firms, including Lockheed Martin, have begun to craft plans for NASA's "call to industry" request that asks companies to give feedback and updates on its plans to create a fission power system on the moon.

"The directive orders the reactors to provide at least 100 kilowatts of power — more than double what the agency had previously envisioned," Politico reported.

Part of the motivation to quicken the project is connected to its competition with China, a geopolitical race as both countries are working "to build long-term bases on the moon, and nuclear reactors will be key to powering those outposts."

Russia and China have reportedly discussed potentially building a joint nuclear power plant by 2035 — prompting NASA to expedite its own plans.

"Officials argue that whoever does it first will write the rules of the road for space," Politico reported.

Trump floats shocking new excuse for taking Greenland

President Donald Trump dropped a stunning new excuse for why the United States should take over Greenland Friday.

Trump was meeting with American oil executives over the military incursion of Venezuela and his goals to shift the country's oil production to benefit the U.S. when a reporter asked about Venezuela and if the country would be considered an ally.

"Right now they seem to be an ally and I think it'll continue to be an ally," Trump said. "We don't want to have Russia there. We don't want to have China there. And by the way, we don't want Russia or China going to Greenland, which if we don't take Greenland, you're going to have Russia or China as your next door neighbor. That's not going to happen."

Trump: "If we don't take Greenland, you're gonna have Russia or China as your next door neighbor. That's not going to happen." pic.twitter.com/kkaaE8qmA1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2026

This massive disaster laid bare a dire danger under Trump

On Nov. 26, 2025, in a quiet northern suburb of Hong Kong, an aggressive fire broke out in the middle of the day. The fire was unusual in its intensity and duration, consuming seven of eight high-rise towers in a residential complex. Despite the quick response of well-equipped fire trucks, the blaze spread quickly and burned for more than 43 hours.

Although the death toll is not final, at least 160 people suffered the most horrific deaths imaginable, with dozens so charred they may never be identified.

The ferocity of the fire has been blamed on a private contractor’s use of highly flammable materials including polystyrene foam boards placed over windows, along with substandard scaffolding netting that failed to meet fire-retardant codes. The buildings were undergoing renovations when the fire hit, and numerous fire alarms also failed to warn.

A tragedy like this gives pause, in part because it should have been prevented. Fire analysts say that more rigorous inspections, including thorough sample testing of materials used on higher floors, not just of easily accessible ground level floors, would have identified the use of non-compliant, cheaper materials before the blaze started.

Although the Chinese government will never admit any fault for the inadequate inspections and has instead jailed people for asking, it’s already clear that standard building inspections would have prevented the loss of life. Lapsed and loose inspections, and possible corruption, meant officials did not detect that flammable materials were used where they should not have been, or that fire safety systems were not functioning, despite residents alerting officials of these problems a year prior to the fire.

It’s also the kind of tragedy lying in wait in the US, ready to strike after Donald Trump's all-out war on safety standards and regulations meant to protect the public.

Americans in danger

Since his re-election, Trump has rewarded corporate donors by dismantling costly regulations they dislike. In the process, time-honored regulations and safety standards that quietly protected life have been gutted, setting us up for a Hong Kong-esque tragedy of our own.

Federal government regulations designed to protect health and lives include, in the broadest sense, workplace safety, transportation safety, food and drug safety, and environmental protection. Under Trump 2.0, each of these categories of protection have either been gutted outright, or are now so attenuated due to funding cuts they barely function.

Each federal agency with regulatory authority, including OSHA, the FDA, the EPA, and DOT, among others, has been significantly weakened with reduced investigations into wrongdoing and corruption, and fewer cases for failing to comply with safety and environmental standards. Trump has also imposed across the board budget cuts for regulatory enforcement, including inspector staffing across a wide spectrum of industries.

None of these changes will continue in a vacuum; other than ignoring climate change which is already wreaking havoc, we won’t know what other unenforced regulation will lead to tragedy until it strikes.

Under Trump’s profits-first-people-last strategy, the EPA has launched the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. Trump dismantled EPA regulations protecting air, water, and soil, relaxed emissions standards for power plants, increased toxic vehicle emissions, weakened water protections, limited scientific research into the risks, and rolled back greenhouse gas reporting and soot standards, all to boost industry profits at the expense of citizens who live and work in those communities.

Trump also shuttered 11 OSHA offices in states reporting unusually high workplace fatalities, most of them Republican-controlled. Louisiana, for example, ranks the sixth-most dangerous state for workers in the U.S. It is also home to more than 200 chemical plants and refineries dotting an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River dubbed “Cancer Alley,” because of the high rates of cancer and birth defects linked to petrochemicals.

Former OSHA Director David Michaels said that with these closures, “enormous oil and petrochemical facilities with significant safety and health hazards will be inspected even less frequently than they are now.”

According to DOGE, the government will save $109,346 from the closures.

Blame game

If Hong Kong-type tragedy strikes, Trump will first block information about it, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will call it fake news, and Fox won’t report it. Then, after the tragedy dominates mainstream media headlines, the whole administration will pivot to blaming Joe Biden.

But the danger is real, it is now, and it is not about politics.

Americans have lived for generations with barely-there inspections, leading to Cancer Alleys, occupational disease, dangerous products, collapsing infrastructure, etc. But now Trump has expelled almost all regulatory watchdogs in service to his corporate donors. Because less regulation means higher profits, corporate America is rewarding Trump handsomely in what amounts to quid pro quo.

In a functioning democracy, this would amount to criminal recklessness. In a rule-of-law republic, the resulting tragedies, when they strike, would lead to charges of foreseeable homicide.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Stephen Miller skewered as US national security strategy 'prepares for the wrong danger'

The Trump administration's new National Security Strategy has altered how the U.S. conducts itself to protect Americans — and with major influence from Stephen Miller, it has shifted a major focus on how it views its relationship with China and Russia instead of new threats from the countries.

Trump's inner circle has shifted its attention to "preparing for the wrong dangers and in denial about genuine threats," according to a new report published Monday in The Atlantic, written by Thomas Wright, senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

Wright described why the U.S. relationship with China has changed.

"With an operation by a group that the U.S. government labeled Salt Typhoon, China has compromised U.S. telecommunications networks and can now listen to calls or read text messages by any American it chooses. If you feel like your communications might be of interest to the Chinese Communist Party, you should be using only encrypted apps for messaging and calls," Wright wrote.

Under another operation, Volt Typhoon, China has reportedly penetrated water-supply plans, electricity grids, and transportation, Wright explained. If a war breaks out between the two countries, the results could be a destructive cyberattack on American infrastructure.

Threats from Russia also loom, he added.

"Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2025 threat assessment, Russia 'is developing a new satellite meant to carry a nuclear weapon as an antisatellite capability,' which, if detonated, 'could cause devastating consequences for the United States, the global economy, and the world in general,'" Wright wrote.

Wright cited that the Trump administration has shown an interest in "building an illiberal world order" and "less concern for the American homeland."

At the center of that change is Stephen Miller, the Trump administration's immigrant policy architect and Homeland Security advisor.

"None of these direct threats to the American homeland are even mentioned in Trump’s NSS. The strategy therefore does not explain what the government, Congress, and the private sector should do to fix these vulnerabilities. Instead, it makes one general reference to the need for 'a resilient national infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters' and 'resist and thwart foreign threats,'" Wright added.

"This neglect is reflected in the administration’s actions," he explained. "Last week, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration, intent on smoothing the way for a state visit to China in April 2026, drew back its plan to impose sanctions on China’s Ministry of State Security over its cyberattacks on the telecommunications system. The story named Stephen Miller—the White House homeland-security adviser, of all things—as responsible for ensuring that no actions are taken that could threaten U.S.-China détente."

Trump announces major decision on Nvidia chips

President Donald Trump revealed a major decision Monday on Nvidia chips.

Nvidia, a chipmaker and a leading semiconductor and artificial intelligence company, has become a major focus of the Trump administration's policies regarding U.S. competitiveness in advanced technology and competition with China, particularly around restrictions on exporting advanced chips to Chinese companies.

Trump dropped a new Truth Social post announcing the move:

"I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively! $25% will be paid to the United States of America. This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers. The Biden Administration forced our Great Companies to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS building “degraded” products that nobody wanted, a terrible idea that slowed Innovation, and hurt the American Worker. That Era is OVER! We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI. NVIDIA’s U.S. Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal. My Administration will always put America FIRST. The Department of Commerce is finalizing the details, and the same approach will apply to AMD, Intel, and other GREAT American Companies. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump has taken positions on NVIDIA's business practices and export controls, viewing the company as central to American technological dominance while also advocating for stricter regulations on technology transfers to foreign adversaries, especially China, and the rising prominence of AI.