Trump Says Anthropic Talks 'Going Fine' at G7 AI Lunch as Export Ban Drags On

Trump Breaks His Silence at the G7

President Trump told reporters at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, that negotiations with Anthropic are 'going fine,' offering his first public remarks on a standoff that has gripped the AI industry for nearly a week. The comment came as Trump appeared alongside Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other AI executives at a Wednesday working lunch on artificial intelligence — an encounter loaded with tension given the unresolved export controls hanging over the company.

The Shutdown and Its Origins

The crisis began on Friday, 12 June, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent Anthropic a letter invoking the 2018 Export Control Reform Act to bar all foreign nationals, inside or outside the United States, from accessing the company's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. It marked the first time the Commerce Department had used that authority against a commercially available AI product. Because Anthropic could not readily distinguish foreign users from American ones, the company said the net effect was to abruptly disable both models for all customers worldwide.

The trigger, according to multiple reports, was Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who privately warned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials that Amazon researchers had used Fable 5 to extract information that could aid cyberattacks. Anthropic disputed the severity of the vulnerability, calling it a 'potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak' and noting that similar capabilities exist in other publicly available models.

Washington Deadlock and Congressional Doubt

Anthropic dispatched technical staff to Washington over the weekend and met administration officials on Monday, but the talks ended without the export controls being lifted. A spokesperson said both parties were working quickly to resolve the matter. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties questioned the order's rationale. Senator Angus King said he was 'a little skeptical,' citing the administration's otherwise announced antipathy toward Anthropic over its refusal to allow its AI to be used for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. Representative Bennie Thompson called the approach 'ad hoc,' while House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino warned against responses that 'unintentionally disadvantage American companies' or allied partners.

Europe Pushes for AI Sovereignty

The ban has amplified European calls for technological independence, with some officials describing the shutdown as proof of a U.S. 'kill switch' over foreign access to American AI. At the G7, European allies proposed a 'trusted partners' framework that would grant allied nations access to advanced U.S. models, with French President Emmanuel Macron leading the push. Wednesday's session brought together the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Mistral AI alongside world leaders — the first G7 gathering to include all three leading American AI firms. With no resolution in sight, the episode has underscored the fragility of global dependence on a handful of U.S. AI providers, and the political risks that come with it.