A daily briefing on Trump issues from The Korea Herald's international desk.

US President Donald Trump speaks at a roundtable in Washington on Thursday (local time). [AFP]
US President Donald Trump speaks at a roundtable in Washington on Thursday (local time). [AFP]

AI technology supremacy is expected to be a central agenda item at the US-China summit scheduled for September. President Donald Trump signaled he will again raise the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping and said the United States must maintain its technological edge.

Trump said Thursday (local time) that Xi "is scheduled to visit in September — on the 24th," adding, "When I was in Beijing, we talked about it, and we'll talk about it again at the next meeting."

AI was already a major topic when Trump made a state visit to Beijing in May. The specific details of those discussions were not disclosed, though China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at the time that the two sides had agreed to hold government-to-government dialogue on AI.

Should the two leaders revisit AI at the September summit, analysts say the recent controversy over Chinese companies allegedly stealing American AI technology could also make it onto the agenda.

"Whoever wins the AI race will ultimately be the winner — period," Trump said. "We are ahead of China in AI technology, and we want to keep it that way."

"We are leading that competition," he added. "As long as we don't do something very stupid and foolish, we will continue to lead — by a substantial margin."

Trump did not directly mention the technology-theft controversy, but his remarks about maintaining a lead over China were widely interpreted as having that issue in mind.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked at a briefing Thursday whether Chinese AI technology theft allegations would be on the table at the September summit, said the meetings "always cover a wide range of topics" and that the specific matter raised "is being looked at closely."

Earlier Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that if Chinese companies covertly crossed the line into intellectual property theft on an industry-wide scale through so-called "distillation" attacks, the United States would consider sanctions and export-control designations.

Chinese startup Moonshot AI's "Kimi K3" model has reached a level comparable to the top-tier models from OpenAI and Anthropic. It is widely seen as having been built by copying American commercial AI models through unauthorized distillation — the practice that prompted Bessent's warning.

The event Trump attended Thursday in Washington was a "ratepayer protection pledge" ceremony. Its core aim is to require major technology companies to build their own power generation facilities so that surging electricity demand from AI data center construction does not drive up utility bills for ordinary consumers.

Trump argued that while China produces power for its AI data centers through "traditional methods," some in the United States are pushing for renewable energy sources such as wind power — a position he attributed to what he called "radical left communists."

"They will stop all new development and kill our most successful industries," he said. "They will eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and hand the AI race to China."

"I have great respect for President Xi, but we represent America," Trump added, taking aim at China. "They want communities to reject as many of these projects as possible, because they want to be ahead in the AI race."


mokiya@heraldcorp.com