When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win". Lots of major tech leaders and people around him think the AI race with China is going to define the next 25-50 years some think this is "the race" as in whoever wins is going to be The Superpower full stop not for the next 50 year just forever.

With that on the line a lot of principles are just plain unimportant.

Hell even Democrats are falling inline behind him on China. D.C. seems to think this is a make or break moment for the long term success of the country.

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giarc 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

If someone wanted American owned companies to compete (or win), they wouldn't take 20% top line revenue of products sold to China. They'd allow those companies to spend that money on R&D to continue to compete against Chinese AI companies.

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SimianSci 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

An Arms Race isnt your regular race, its just running on a treadmill. There is no end, and the only thing you do is hope you dont collapse of exhaustion before your competition does. All the while, new competitors keep joining in.

If I recall, America was in a "make or break moment" back during the Cold War/Desert Storm/Iraq/etc. seems that we're still running...

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2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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ModernMech 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win".

When Trump says "America First" he means "Trump First". Insofar as this administration is concerned about winning a purported AI race, it's so that they can make money off of it. Trump views money collected by the government as his own personal slush fund, so this 10% of Intel is about him personally getting ownership of the AI race now. It has nothing to do with setting America up for the future, let's be clear.

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Buttons840 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One recent thing that isn't "America First", and doesn't help America "win", is that Trump blew up Canada trade negotiations because Canada decided to recognize the statehood of some distance nation in the middle east. Screwing up trade that affects everyone in America because of policy changes about things on the other side of the world doesn't seem focused on America. We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?

The "let's just do whatever helps those in power gain more power" is a better match for what is happening.

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tick_tock_tick 2 days ago | parent [-]

> We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?

I mean Canada doesn't really have the choice to do that. They are too dependent on America to really do much but just accept whatever we say. Maybe they can start reorienting themselves for a future in 10-20 years where they can meaningfully ramp up EU/China trade but for now they just accept whatever the USA says.

It's like when the last election was all "elbows up" then it turned out they had folded instantly and just hid it from their population.

	▲	Buttons840 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		In March Canada exports to the US decreased 6.6%, and their exports to other countries increased 25%. Canada's imports from America decreased 2.9%. Canada now exports more crude oil to China than it does to the US. There is now a strong social will and political will to reduce ties to the US and increase ties with other nations. This may take time, and it may not end the US, but it doesn't help the US by any means. And why is this happening? "America First" means helping people that live in America; what part of this helps people living in America?

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insane_dreamer a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If his actions were actually designed to make “America win” I’d have less of a problem with it. But even at that goal they fail miserably.

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mieubrisse 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I appreciated this comment. I really dislike Trump, but I try to steelman the opposing side to not fall into the "other party bad!" nonsense. But his recent actions have made it very hard to find a steelman, and it's been hard to resist feeling "the dude is a power-hungry narcissist". Your explanation makes a lot of sense as a steelman; thank you!

	▲	Buttons840 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		If you look only at Trump helping Intel, then yeah, that steelman makes sense. But if you look at the affects of Trumps policies, such as stagnated manufacturing jobs, and huge uncertainty around tariffs, and Trump's willingness to blow up trade negotiations with Canada because Canada changed their policies about the middle east; just overall, Trump's not doing things that help us beat China. We also see things like the US tends to reward those working in finance more than people working in engineering or just doing regular work. Income tax is higher than capital gains tax in America, this is a political choice we have made that rewards those who move money and capital around, but we give less reward to those who work or build things. Meanwhile in China they go out of their way to punish those in finance with government enforced caps on financial industry wages and such; they're trying to make sure their society is set up to reward engineering, building things, and regular work more than it rewards moving money around.