Behind the Curtain: Trump's power play
TL;DR
After the Supreme Court stripped Trump of unilateral tariff authority, he immediately imposed a new 10% global tariff under a separate emergency law — daring the courts to stop him again.
Key Points
- In 14 days: a major Middle East military operation, new global tariffs, a blacklist for the hottest AI company on the planet, and approval of the biggest media merger in two decades.
- Not a single new law was passed — Congress was bypassed, courts were sidestepped, norms were shattered.
- Axios journalist Zachary Basu frames this fortnight as a historic display of concentrated executive power.
Nauti's Take
This is not ordinary political controversy — it is a stress test for institutional checks and balances the US has not seen at this scale before. For the AI world, the potential blacklisting of Anthropic sends a chilling message: even the most well-funded and politically cautious AI labs are not safe from executive caprice.
Anyone investing in AI today is also betting on political stability — and that bet is getting riskier. The real question is not whether Trump is crossing lines, but who is left to draw them.
Context
The executive blacklisting of 'the hottest AI company on the planet' — reportedly Anthropic — shows how directly geopolitical power plays can now intervene in AI company fates. When a government can exclude companies from markets by decree, it fundamentally changes risk calculations for the entire industry. Europe and the rest of the world must assume that AI regulation will increasingly be used as a geopolitical instrument.
Sources