It is very hard to believe the US government is operating in good faith any more. Do I need to gesture more broadly at the open corruption?

Agreed. Going by patterns in the Iran war, members of Trump's family/in-crowd will invest in AI while it suffers from this decision, and then 15 mins later Trump will reverse the decision.

The thing is, that blatant market manipulation is playing with fire here, as so much of the US economy is invested in the AI bubble.