Trump Rejects UK Plea for Exemption From Anthropic AI Ban as Allies Scramble for Sovereign AI

A Kill Switch Heard Around the World

When the US Commerce Department ordered Anthropic to suspend all foreign access to its newly released Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models on 12 June, citing national security concerns, it set off a chain reaction now reshaping how allied nations think about their dependence on American technology. Unable to screen users by nationality at short notice, Anthropic disabled both models entirely, cutting off Americans and foreigners alike.

Allies Sound the Alarm

Politicians across Europe and beyond responded with calls to treat frontier AI as critical infrastructure that must not depend on foreign providers. In the UK, AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the move had direct implications for defence, noting that the most capable models used in drones, counter-drone defence systems, and cybersecurity are now the fundamental fault line for who wins and who loses in warfare. Former UK security minister Tom Tugendhat said national security is now more about code than cannons. Britain lobbied the White House for an exemption and was told there was zero chance of a carve-out, according to a source close to President Trump.

In France, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said the incident proved AI is now as essential as electricity or the internet, and that infrastructure controlled by others is infrastructure that others can unplug. In Finland, MEP Aura Salla said Europe cannot keep building its tech stack on access that can be switched off overnight by a foreign government, while German MEP Sergey Lagodinsky pushed for a consortium of middle powers to pool computing capacity.

France Drops Palantir

France moved swiftly to reduce its dependence on US technology. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that the DGSI, France's domestic intelligence agency, will replace Palantir's data-analysis tools with software from ChapsVision, a French firm, framing the switch as part of a drive to build real autonomy. Lecornu also said all French civil servants would be given access to an AI assistant powered by domestic champion Mistral AI. The transition away from Palantir will take place over several years to prevent a capability gap.

Trust and Fragmentation

Analysts warn the episode could fragment the global AI industry for years. The EU relies on non-EU countries for more than 80 percent of its technology and 70 percent of its cloud computing, while the US and China together control roughly 90 percent of global AI computing infrastructure. Jonathan Iwry, a fellow at the Wharton Accountable AI Lab, warned that exercising unilateral control might increase US leverage in the short term, but could also encourage allies to reduce their dependence on American AI over the longer term. The European Commission had already unveiled its European Technological Sovereignty Package on 3 June, targeting €422 billion in investment across semiconductors, data centres, and AI over the next decade. As Oxford professor Sandra Wachter put it, this is something always known but never quite felt, the experience of being on the side that has to face the kill switch.