Dawn
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05:58 Feb 28, 2026
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he is directing the government to stop work with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the start-up a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown about technology guardrails. Trump added there would be a six-month phase-out for the Defence Department and other agencies that use the company’s products. If Anthropic does not help with the transition, Trump said, he would use “the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow”. The actions mark an extraordinary rebuke by the United States against one of the premier companies that has kept it in the lead on national security-critical AI, threatening to give Anthropic a pariah status that Washington until now had reserved for enemy suppliers. Google and Amazon are among Anthropic’s financial backers. The moves further set a precedent that US law alone would constrain how AI is deployed on the battlefield, wit...