Comment by Matt Pottinger

First, let the Chinese Communist Party struggle to reinvent the wheel we have already created. This could be our Reagan “Star Wars” moment. We rattled the Soviets in the 1980s by merely researching strategic missile defense. This time, we have a real, hardware-based advantage. If China’s rulers want to spend hundreds of billions only to stay in second place, they should be our guest. President Trump would never sell his Golden Dome missile-defense program to the Iranians or the North Koreans. He shouldn't sell China an advantage in AI. Second, press the administration to reverse the disastrous decision to let American firms sell advanced AI chips to China. Some at Commerce are trying to stem the bleeding by putting terms and conditions into the export regulations—a valiant effort, but not nearly enough. Congress needs to step in, reverse the policy, and put durable guardrails in place so the mistake can’t be repeated. To maximally protect U.S. advantages, we also need to close the loopholes that China exploits to make, buy, or rent AI computing power or illicitly exploit U.S. AI technology. If nothing else, reach out to President Trump. In my experience, he always welcomed different viewpoints made in good faith.