U.S. can hold AI talks with China because ‘we are in the lead,’ Bessent tells CNBC as nations plan safety protocol

Oh, marvellous. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced that the U.S. and China will establish an AI safety protocol, because nothing says 'safety' quite like a race where one side insists it's 'in the lead' and the other side is presumably plotting its own gallop. Bessent told CNBC that the U.S. is so far ahead that it can afford to chat with its main rival about guardrails. Because when have two superpowers with advanced weapons systems ever had a productive conversation about safety while one is claiming victory? The protocol itself is still a shimmering mirage of diplomatic jargon.

The timing is exquisite: the world's two largest economies, locked in a tech cold war, are going to sit down and agree on rules for something neither fully controls. Bessent's confidence that 'we are in the lead' is the kind of hubris that usually precedes a historical foot-in-mouth moment. Perhaps the protocol will include a clause about not letting AGI escape while the other side blinks. The gall of framing a bilateral safety chat as a position of strength is peak diplomatic theatre — two wizards arguing about wand safety before duelling.

So here we are: a safety protocol between two nations that have spent the last few years throttling each other's chip supplies. Bessent might think the U.S. is leading, but in the race to regulate something as slippery as AI, 'leading' might just mean you're the first to trip. Still, it's good to know that when the artificial superintelligence inevitably wakes up, it will have some very polite, thoroughly negotiated rules to ignore. Cheers, Scott.