The rapidly increasing global competitiveness of China’s artificial intelligence models is ringing alarm bells in Washington, posing a new test for the standard protectionist playbook. “We’re taking a very close look at how China is propagating its AI development,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said separately the US could sanction any foreign models found to be stealing American intellectual property, and suggested pressure could be placed on companies using Chinese AI. “You can’t use counterfeit goods,” he also said. If the Trump administration decides to try to curtail China’s open-weight models, however, it would run into challenges unseen with previous protectionist moves. While Chinese electric vehicles could be tariffed and Huawei Technologies Co.’s 5G equipment could be banned, those measures are tougher when it comes to containing software that can be downloaded, modified and run locally once released.

Full report : Chinese AI models account for nearly 60% of token usage by US companies on OpenRouter, making restrictions harder without disrupting US users and businesses.