What is Trump administration?

Taiwan signed a February 2026 trade deal committing to over $40 billion in US LNG and crude oil purchases through 2029, raising US LNG to roughly one-third of Taiwan's total supply.

“In February 2026, Taiwan signed a reciprocal trade agreement with the Trump administration, committing to over $40 billion in US LG and crude oil purchases through 2029, which will increase US LG imports to roughly one-third of Taiwan's total supply.”

Jon Finer on Iran's new strategic leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.

“They now have done a real-world test case of this, know exactly how to do it. And anytime they feel hard done by the Trump administration, some future American administration, some other country, they now know they have this card that they can play going forward.”

The Trump administration's new AI framework explicitly carves out open-weight models from safety testing requirements, leaving a major class of frontier-capable models unregulated.

“Open weight models are explicitly excluded from it.”

At least eight major law firms had settled with the Trump administration following Paul Weiss's initial capitulation, with more since.

“There were eight by the time James and I wrote our piece, and I think there have been more.”

CXMT, a Chinese memory supplier on the Pentagon blacklist, is being petitioned by Apple for a purchase waiver, making it a company to watch in the AI supply chain and export control space.

“Apple has petitioned the Trump administration for clearance to buy memory from Chinese supplier CXMT, a company that is currently on the Pentagon's blacklist due to alleged ties from the Chinese military.”

Helen Thompson on the Trump administration treating allied dependence on US gas as a foreign policy tool.

“They regard the dependence of other states, particularly on US gas, as an instrument of their foreign policy, something to be encouraged.”

Kevin Roose explains the administration's bet that Chinese AI progress depends on distilling American frontier models.

“The only explanation I could give you is that the administration is effectively making a bet that Chinese models cannot effectively advance to the frontier or the near frontier if the US models don't advance even further first, right? Because the idea is that these models are succeeding largely because they are distilling the American models, and if there are no giant new highly capable American models to distill, the Chinese models will only ever be so good.”

The Trump administration's AI framework logic: slowing US frontier model releases also caps Chinese AI progress, because Chinese labs advance primarily by distilling American models.

“The only explanation I could give you is that the administration is effectively making a bet that Chinese models cannot effectively advance to the frontier or the near frontier if the US models don't advance even further first, right? Because the idea is that these models are succeeding largely because they are distilling the American models, and if there are no giant new highly capable American models to distill, the Chinese models will only ever be so good.”

US military bases in the Gulf suffered significant damage during the Hormuz conflict, damage the Trump administration downplayed publicly.

“Our bases suffered significant damage that was downplayed by the administration during the course of this conflict.”

PhRMA's board explicitly voted early in the Trump administration not to advocate on NIH or biomedical research funding, prioritizing other policy objectives instead.

“I'm told that there were PhRMA board meetings early in administration where PhRMA CEOs brought up the idea and said, you know, 'Should PhRMA as a trade association weigh in on, on this issue?' And there was an explicit vote to say no, that they, they shouldn't because there were other things that were higher priorities to them.”