Thai PM says US AI demands unrelated to tariff talks

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has said demands by the United States that its allies choose sides in the artificial intelligence (AI) technology competition with China will not affect Thailand’s ongoing tariff negotiations with Washington.

Anutin said the two issues were unrelated, adding that the negotiations would involve various conditions that would have to be considered.

He said it was necessary to examine what the term “choose sides” meant and at what level a country would be considered to have taken sides.

The prime minister said negotiations were still underway and that he had recently held talks with the US undersecretary of defence, during which he told the US official that military security issues and the Cobra Gold military exercise had nothing to do with trade negotiations.

Anutin also insisted that Thailand had not come under pressure from the United States.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jaithai Upakarnitikaset, when asked to comment on the matter, echoed the prime minister’s view that the two issues were unrelated.

“AI is a new area of cooperation and we need to consider the various aspects in detail. As for reports that letters are being sent to allied countries, Thailand has not received such a letter. We will have to follow up on the details,” she said.

Reuters, citing a US official and an internal draft it reviewed, reported that Washington was preparing to tell dozens of countries that they must pick sides in the artificial intelligence race with China, warning that they could be excluded from a US-led AI coalition if they also joined Beijing’s competing framework.

Last year, Washington launched the Pax Silica initiative, aimed at securing supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals amid an intensifying technology rivalry with Beijing.

About two dozen countries have joined the initiative, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition, as well as close US allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea.

The draft letter, prepared by the State Department, is addressed to the 35 signatories of the US “AI Opportunity Statement”, signed in June. The signatories include members of the non-binding Pax Silica framework and other countries that have expressed a desire to align their AI cooperation with Washington.

By pressing countries to choose sides, the US hopes to deny China access to resources in the race to develop the most sophisticated AI, which could be used to gain military or economic dominance.

In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a rival “World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation”, promoting China’s open-weight technology — artificial intelligence models whose core numerical parameters learned during training are made publicly available — as a challenge to US influence in the fast-moving sector.

Kazakhstan is the only country so far known to have joined both initiatives, raising concerns in Washington.

“To be part of everything is to be part of nothing. Signature on the Pax Silica Declaration is not merely a membership subscription, but a commitment,” the letter says, urging countries to “choose deliberately” on AI.

“It cannot be held alongside membership in duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own,” the letter continues, without specifically mentioning China.

Reuters could not determine when the US intends to send the letter or whether it might be amended before being sent. The draft was undated, and the State Department told Reuters it would not comment on “purportedly leaked internal documents”.

China’s embassy in Washington said it opposed the politicisation of trade and technology issues, adding through a spokesperson that “Such actions will only stifle global AI advances and serve no one’s interests.”

The Kazakh embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The Pax Silica agreement aims to push US allies and partners towards joint projects and export controls, ultimately reducing reliance on adversaries for critical minerals, AI models and the semiconductor chips that power them.

The race between the US and China for technological leadership has reached a pivotal moment, as Chinese open-weight AI models have made rapid gains against proprietary systems developed by US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

The exponential growth of AI capabilities, including the ability to hack autonomously, has prompted a global reckoning over the technology’s power.

Beijing is weighing restrictions on overseas access to some of China’s leading AI models, highlighting growing tensions between technological development and its stringent national security agenda.

The US touted Kazakhstan in June as the first Central Asian country to join Pax Silica, bringing significant reserves of critical minerals that fuel advanced technologies.

China has used its near-monopoly over some critical minerals as a retaliatory weapon in a tariff war launched last year by US President Donald Trump, who has ramped up efforts to source the minerals domestically and from allies.

Members of Pax Silica have access to shared investment opportunities in AI-related projects, while those who sign the AI Opportunity Statement have symbolically agreed on a “common purpose” and “shared vision” with the US, according to the statement posted on the State Department’s website.

US officials drafted the letter to make clear that “you can’t have it both ways,” the US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of ongoing internal discussions on the issue.

“It’s difficult to see how a country can credibly position themselves as trusted partners in one technology ecosystem while simultaneously signing up for an initiative designed by China to advance a competing vision for AI,” the official said.