This is a cynical take, but this feels like a psyop to force the hand of US law makers to regulate AI (or allow them to regulate themselves in an exclusive league). It’s easier to ban competitive low cost models which will never be able to enter/succeed within a US AI regulatory framework, than it is to continue to outcompete them and defend an ever-closing gap.

In the future, individual models will need to be certified “safe” for the open US market, or else pay a penalty multiplier on their token cost to negate foreign innovation and competition. Like the Chinese car industry.