President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday launching a “national effort” to integrate artificial intelligence into research and accelerate innovation and scientific discovery.
The Trump administration has made AI research and innovation a top priority as it seeks to win the AI “race” against China. The White House said the new national effort, named the Genesis Mission, will be one of the largest research and development projects in the history of the United States.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright <a href="https://x.com/ENERGY/status/1993102758812303725">compared</a> the effort that the Trump administration is coordinating for AI advancement to the Manhattan Project that developed the nuclear bomb and the Apollo Program that landed the first humans on the moon.
“In this pivotal moment, the challenges we face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project that was instrumental to our victory in World War II and was a critical basis for the foundation of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories,” the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/launching-the-genesis-mission/">order</a> states.
The aim of the Genesis Mission is to build an AI model that will learn from and incorporate federal datasets “to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.”
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The project will partner researchers at each of the United States’ 17 national laboratories with businesses and academic research centers to work on AI development and models.
“The Genesis Mission will dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, secure energy dominance, enhance workforce productivity, and multiply the return on taxpayer investment into research and development, thereby furthering America’s technological dominance and global strategic leadership,” the order states.
The project will largely be run through the Department of Energy and its network of national laboratories that conduct some of the most sensitive research in the United States.
“The Order directs the Department of Energy to create a closed-loop AI experimentation platform that integrates our Nation’s world-class supercomputers and unique data assets to generate scientific foundation models and power robotic laboratories,” a White House <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-unveils-the-genesis-missionto-accelerate-ai-for-scientific-discovery/">fact sheet</a> on the order says.

President Trump Signs Executive Order On Energy Production

Trump Signs Order Launching ‘Manhattan Project’ For Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Chris Wright

Communist China

Donald Trump

Technology

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On Monday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that President Donald Trump faces a high-stakes decision: Where to draw the line on exporting American AI technology to China. 
“Is it more of a national security risk to give China some of these high-powered chips, or is it more of a national security risk to not have US tech in China?” Bloomberg anchor Lisa Abramowicz asked the commerce secretary in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4RfWh-1oNk">interview</a> on Monday.
“Well, that is the question &#8230; in front of the president,” Lutnick replied.  
As the commerce secretary, Lutnick oversees America’s export-control system. These rules regulate which sensitive technologies can be sold abroad. Nvidia’s AI chips have become a contentious part of that system. Lutnick explained that the President “decides whether to sell those chips or not, and then we will execute it however he decides to go forward.” 
Abramowicz pressed Lutnick specifically on whether the administration will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China. The H200 is not as advanced as the new Blackwell chips, which President Trump said <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/11/03/trump-says-hell-allow-china-nvidia-deals-except-for-most-advanced-blackwell-chips/">will not be allowed for export</a>, but is more advanced than the H20 chips, which were <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/trump-nvidia-amd-china-chip-revenue-deal-implications.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">approved for export earlier this year</a>. 
Some experts warn that allowing sales of H200 AI chips would go too far. 
Samuel Hammond, chief economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, told The Daily Wire,  “Permitting H200 exports to China would be a world-historic mistake. America’s current lead in AI would be radically diminished with very little show for it.” 
Hammond said the United States has an advantage, but it&#8217;s far from secure. “Our lead is incredibly fragile. China is massively outbuilding us on energy, leaving us vulnerable to being leapfrogged but for export controls,” he said. If export controls were lifted entirely, he warned, America’s <a href="https://ifp.org/the-b30a-decision/">computing advantage</a> would “quickly drop from nearly 30x to just 4x.”
President Trump’s AI Czar, David Sacks, emphasized this at the Salesforce Dreamforce <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzv3GixZL6g">conference</a> last month, stressing that the decision is far from straightforward. 
“What we ship to China is complicated,” Sacks said.
Under the current policy, only less advanced chips are exported. But Sacks noted that the fight in Washington is over where that line should be drawn. He said, “Some people want to draw that line very, very restrictively.&#8221; 
He argued that Washington’s mindset contrasts sharply with Silicon Valley’s, the place where Sacks built his career. 
“What Washington wants is control &#8230; The bureaucracies want to control these decisions. They want you to apply for a license and get their permission to do business,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If we let the bureaucracy win, we are going to kill American competitiveness all over the world.” 
Silicon Valley takes a different view. “Everyone in Silicon Valley understands that the way that you win a technology race is to have the biggest ecosystem &#8230; the most developers &#8230; the most apps in your app store,” he said. “You just want everybody to be building on top of your technology stack. And that&#8217;s what we want for the United States.” 
Sacks believes Trump’s approach to China should be nuanced. 
“I don’t think you want to sell China our latest and greatest chips because it would be too much of an advantage for them. But if you deprive them entirely, there are two issues with that.” 
First, the economies of the United States and China are linked through trade, Sacks said. “We saw that recently with the rare earths, where they cut us off and imposed new requirements on that. So as long as we need some things from China, we are going to have to reciprocate in some way.” 
Second, U.S. companies competing against China can weaken Chinese AI competitors such as Huawei, he continued. 
“China wants Huawei to scale up and dominate the Chinese market and then use that to then dominate the world market,” Sacks said. “And what Huawei would want is for all American chips to be banned in China so they can dominate that huge market for themselves.”
“I wouldn’t give them the latest and greatest,&#8221; he said, “but if we can take share away from Huawei with a less current chip, then that’s something I think we should consider doing.” 
President Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115605897178712132">wrote</a> on Truth Social Monday that he talked to China&#8217;s President Xi Jinping, but did not directly mention Nvidia&#8217;s H200 chips. &#8220;We discussed many topics including Ukraine/Russia, Fentanyl, Soybeans, and other Farm Products, etc.”

Nvidia

Trump Admin Faces Critical AI Decision

To Sell Advanced AI Chips, Or Not To Sell Advanced AI Chips?

Global Politics

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Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) warned on Sunday that the United States was quickly losing ground when it came to cybersecurity — and that communist China was stepping up its game equally quickly and had already &#8220;replaced Russia as the most formidable cyber threat.&#8221;
Bacon, who currently serves as Chairman of the Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation (CITI),  joined CBS host Margaret Brennan on &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; where he broke down the obvious threat following the news that state-sponsored Chinese hackers had already succeeded in carrying out the first Artificial Intelligence-driven cyber-espionage operation.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“China has replaced Russia as the most formidable cyber threat,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) says after Anthropic announced Chinese hackers used its artificial intelligence technology in what the company believes is the first cyber-espionage operation largely carried out using AI.… <a href="https://t.co/kPC3W73pLY">pic.twitter.com/kPC3W73pLY</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1990108692834828456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;AI firm Anthropic said that Chinese state-sponsored hackers used their technology to automate break-ins and carry out the first cyber-espionage operation largely carried out using AI, it hit like 30 different companies,&#8221; Brennan began, asking, &#8220;What can you tell us about the scope and the targets of this attack?&#8221;
&#8220;China has replaced Russia as the most formidable cyber threat,&#8221; Bacon replied. &#8220;They have much higher technology, they are using AI, which gives you a lot more capability at finding weaknesses in your adversaries&#8217; cyber-defenses.&#8221;
&#8220;What concerns me more than anything, while China is attacking us every single day — and Russia — we&#8217;ve had no commander in charge of cyber command for eight months,&#8221; Bacon continued, noting that the previous commander had been fired but hadn&#8217;t yet been replaced. &#8220;Also the top two positions at the National Security Agency are vacant.&#8221;
&#8220;Our cyber capabilities are going backward. We’re rudderless in a time when China is attacking us every day,&#8221; he concluded. &#8220;That’s something that really concerns me, and I’ve been pushing the White House to deal with this.&#8221;

House GOP Caucus Meets On Tuesday Morning

‘We’re Rudderless’: Lawmaker Warns That China Is Stepping Up Its Cyber-Threat Game As U.S. Flounders

'We're Rudderless': Lawmaker Warns That China Is Stepping Up Its Cyber-Threat Game As U.S. Flounders

China

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Chinese hackers unleashed the first autonomous AI cyberattack against dozens of U.S. companies and government agencies earlier this fall, with artificial intelligence executing “80-90%” of operations at “physically impossible” speeds.
The suspected Chinese state-sponsored hackers manipulated Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude, to target roughly 30 entities, including major technology corporations, financial institutions, chemical manufacturing companies, and U.S. government agencies, according to a detailed <a href="https://assets.anthropic.com/m/ec212e6566a0d47/original/Disrupting-the-first-reported-AI-orchestrated-cyber-espionage-campaign.pdf">report</a> published by Anthropic.
In what the company calls “the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention,” the Chinese hackers bypassed Claude’s safeguards by claiming to be part of a credible cybersecurity firm conducting defensive testing.
This social engineering of Claude provided enough cover for the hackers to evade detection by the company for months, allowing the hackers to freely manipulate the coding tool into autonomously performing complex infiltration techniques “more efficiently than any human operator.”
“This campaign demonstrates that the barriers to performing sophisticated cyberattacks have dropped substantially—and we can predict that they’ll continue to do so,” Anthropic warned in its report. “Threat actors can now use agentic AI systems to do the work of entire teams of experienced hackers with the right set up.”
The attack required minimal human intervention, relying on Claude’s “agent” — a form of AI that can operate autonomously for long periods without human intervention — to substantially ease the workload for the hackers.
“Analysis of operational tempo, request volumes, and activity patterns confirms the AI executed approximately 80 to 90 % of all tactical work independently, with humans serving in strategic supervisory roles,” the report states, adding that each hacking campaign only required 4-6 critical decision points from the human operator.
“The AI made thousands of requests per second — an attack speed that would have been, for human hackers, simply impossible to match,” the company <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage">said</a> in its blog post.
Once safeguards had been bypassed, Claude autonomously probed for vulnerabilities in the selected targets, wrote custom exploit code to harvest usernames and passwords, and exfiltrated the data with minimal human intervention.
Hackers have been utilizing AI for years to perform minor tasks, such as scanning the web for vulnerable sites and managing phishing attacks. However, the most recent hacking campaign has proven that AI is not far off from conducting fully autonomous cyberattacks, only held back by hallucinations that hinder autonomous offensive capabilities and safeguards implemented by companies like Anthropic.
The company reports that only four of the targeted institutions were successfully breached by the Chinese attacks, which managed to steal troves of sensitive information. The U.S. government was not among the institutions breached, Anthropic <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-hackers-ai-cyberattacks-anthropic-41d7ce76?mod=hp_lead_pos4">told</a> the Wall Street Journal.
Anthropic managed to stop the attack before more companies were breached, banning the hackers’ accounts and updating the methods used to identify similar attacks in the future.
Anthropic’s strategy is to focus on using Claude to identify vulnerabilities in its own defenses, thereby staying a step ahead of malicious hackers who exploit AI for autonomous attacks, per the Journal.
“These kinds of tools will just speed up things,” Logan Graham told the Journal, who leads the team that tests for vulnerabilities in Claude. “If we don’t enable defenders to have a very substantial permanent advantage, I’m concerned that we maybe lose this race.”

ChineseHacker

Chinese Hackers Hijack U.S. AI In First Autonomous Cyberattack

Crime

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Three Chinese researchers at the University of Michigan were charged Wednesday in connection with a conspiracy to smuggle biological materials into the United States, the Justice Department announced.
Those charged <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-chinese-national-scholars-university-michigan-laboratory-charged-conspiring-smuggle">include</a> 28-year-old Xu Bai, 27-year-old Fengfan Zhang, and 30-year-old Zhiyong Zhang. The arrests are the latest in a “long <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/alarming-pattern-another-chinese-national-arrested-for-smuggling-biological-materials-into-u-s">string of cases</a>” involving Chinese nationals and the University of Michigan, the Justice Department said.
“Allegedly attempting to smuggle biological materials under the guise of ‘research’ is a serious crime that threatens America’s national and agricultural security,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “We will remain vigilant to threats like these from foreign nationals who would take advantage of America’s generosity to advance a malicious agenda.”
Each of the suspects held a J-1 visa and was conducting research at the University of Michigan’s Xianzhong Xu laboratory, also known as the Shawn Xu laboratory. The <a href="https://www.lsi.umich.edu/science/our-labs/s-xu-lab/research">lab</a> is a “sensory biology” research center that focuses on how animals experience their internal and external world through their senses.
In 2024 and 2025, Bai and F. Zhang allegedly received shipments of concealed biological materials related to roundworms sent from a Chinese national, the DOJ said. The Chinese national who sent them the worms was Chengxuan Han, who was recently deported from the United States after pleading no contest to three counts of smuggling and one count of making false statements.
The defendants were fired from their positions at the university after refusing to attend a mandatory meeting to discuss the investigation into their practices, the DOJ said. They later tried to fly out of the country from Detroit and then New York City before they were apprehended by federal law enforcement.
“At some point, pattern becomes practice. And, apparently, these three men are part of a long and alarming pattern of criminal activities committed by Chinese Nationals under the cover of the University of Michigan,” said United States Attorney Jerome Gorgon, Jr.
Agencies involved in the investigation included Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI, and Customs and Border Protection.
“This case underscores the vital importance of safeguarding the American people and addressing vulnerabilities within foreign student and exchange visitor programs,” said acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons. “Educational institutions must enhance their admissions procedures to prevent exploitation, which can pose risks to national security, as demonstrated in this instance. I commend the ICE HSI agents and officers who work tirelessly to protect our nation and uphold the rule of law every day.”
In June, FBI Director Kash Patel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-arrest-chinese-scholar-for-attempting-to-smuggle-pathogen-used-for-agroterrorism-into-u-s">revealed</a> that a Chinese scholar at the University of Michigan was arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle a biological pathogen into the United States that could be used for agricultural terrorism.

Ann Arbor Cityscapes And City Views

Feds Makes More Arrests As ‘Alarming Pattern’ Of Chinese Smuggling Continues

Department of Justice

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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Saturday took aim at Beijing over an increase in &#8220;destabilising actions&#8221; in the South China Sea and committed to support Southeast Asian countries with technology to help them respond jointly to Chinese threats.
On a second day in Kuala Lumpur packed with meetings that included multilateral talks with allies Australia, Japan and the Philippines, Hegseth proposed to ASEAN defence ministers the building of shared maritime domain awareness and said China had shown a lack of respect and threatened their territorial sovereignty.
&#8220;You live it on the threats we all face from China&#8217;s aggression and course of actions in the South China Sea and elsewhere,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We need to develop our joint capabilities to respond, and this includes being able to monitor maritime conduct and develop the tools that allow us to respond quickly &#8230; ensuring that whoever is on the receiving end of aggression and provocation is then, therefore, by definition, not alone.&#8221;
&#8220;No one can innovate and scale like the United States of America, and we&#8217;re eager to share those capabilities with allies and partners,&#8221; Hegseth added.
Hegseth&#8217;s remarks came a day after the armed forces of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and the U.S. held a drill in the South China Sea, a patrol that a Chinese military spokesperson said &#8220;seriously undermined peace and stability.&#8221;
Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea via a line on its maps that overlaps with parts of the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
China has deployed an armada of coast guard vessels hundreds of kilometers off its mainland that has repeatedly clashed with vessels of the Philippines and been accused of disrupting energy activities of Malaysia and Vietnam.
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Beijing denies acting aggressively and says its coast guard has operated professionally in defending Chinese territory from incursions.
On Friday, its Defense Minister Dong Jun said it was necessary for China and ASEAN to work together to &#8220;pool Eastern strength&#8221; and safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.
Hegseth&#8217;s visit to Southeast Asia came soon after U.S. President Donald Trump announced on social media that he had asked the U.S. military to &#8220;start testing our Nuclear Weapons,&#8221; after a halt for 33 years, a move that appeared to be a message to rival nuclear powers China and Russia.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump meant nuclear-explosive testing, which would be carried out by the National Nuclear Security Administration, or flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles.
Asked by reporters what kind of testing Trump was referring to, Hegseth said his department would comment later, adding: &#8220;We have very capable nuclear capabilities, and testing them is only prudent.&#8221;
In addressing the defense ministers&#8217; forum, Hegseth touted Washington&#8217;s peace credentials and said the U.S. was dedicated to building a military &#8220;unmatched in global power,&#8221; while stressing its commitment to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.
He said U.S. dialogue with China was important and the opportunity to talk to his Chinese counterpart on Friday was of value, but warned Beijing&#8217;s actions must be watched closely.
&#8220;We seek peace. We do not seek conflict, but we must ensure that China is not seeking to dominate you or anybody else,&#8221; Hegseth told ASEAN counterparts.
(Reporting by Danial Azhar and Mandy Leong. Writing by Martin Petty. Editing by Mark Potter)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Testifies In Senate Hearing

Hegseth Says U.S. Ready To Share Tools To Help Allies Counter ‘Aggressive’ China

Nuclear Weapons

Pete Hegseth

Editor’s Note: This is the third installment in the five-part series “American Maoists: Warnings From The Cultural Revolution.”
In Part II, Xi Van Fleet and Sasha Gong — both activists, scholars, and survivors of Mao’s communist uprising — broke down the endless cycle of victimization that fuels perpetual revolution, and has been embraced by the American Left.
Today, the authors take up the question of women. The American Left, it turns out, is not the first revolutionary movement to encourage androgyny and shame women for being traditionally feminine. Indeed, as our authors, show, destroying womanhood is essential to the revolutionary project.
*** 
The story of women under radical Marxist ideology is the story of beauty turned to beast.
Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing — known in the West as Madame Mao — was once celebrated as a symbol of feminine beauty. In 1930s Shanghai, the so-called “Hollywood of the East,” she gained fame as a rising movie star, embodying the glamour and grace traditionally associated with Chinese womanhood.
But Shanghai was also a hub for progressives, Communist sympathizers, and fellow travelers — and Jiang Qing was soon drawn into their orbit.
In 1937, at the age of 23, Jiang Qing — like tens of thousands of other progressive youths — traveled to Yan’an, the Communist stronghold in the loess hills of northwestern China, to join the revolution. There she quickly caught Mao Zedong’s attention, leading him to set aside his guerrilla fighter wife and marry the former movie star. 
As Jiang Qing bound herself to Mao and the Communist revolution, she began to shed her feminine image: cutting her long hair short, trading dresses for shapeless military uniforms, and abandoning the aura of a glamorous actress.
This transformation was not simply personal; it reflected a broader ideological demand. In Yan’an, and later in Beijing, the revolution required individuals to dissolve their identity into the collective. As Mao’s political power grew, Jiang’s own image moved ever further from the ideals of Chinese traditional femininity.
By 1966, when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, Jiang’s metamorphosis was complete. Elevated to unprecedented authority as “Chairman Mao’s greatest standard-bearer,” she emerged as a hardened, gender-neutral revolutionary warrior, wearing a distinctly masculine haircut and clad only in a Mao suit or military uniform.
Jiang Qing became the model for all Chinese women to emulate. Feminine qualities were denounced as toxic, bourgeois, and reactionary, and women were expected to abandon not only the ornaments of beauty but the very essence of femininity itself — as lovers, wives, and mothers. Mao himself praised this new ideal in verse: “China’s daughters hold uncommon resolve; they love not splendid ornaments, but the arms of revolution.”
Nowhere was this more stark than in the Red Guard movement: thousands of teenage girls, who might once have sung, studied, or courted love, instead shouted slogans, wielded clubs, and became torturers and killers.
The Red Guard was responsible for the first murder of the Cultural Revolution — the brutal beating to death of their principal at a Beijing girls’ high school — an act that unleashed the nationwide violence which would claim tens of millions of lives.
It was in that era that both of us passed through girlhood, adolescence, and the bloom of youth, devoid of all femininity.
We were told, and we believed, that women could hold up half the sky, and that whatever men could do, we could do even better. We strove to become Iron Girls — the Chinese version of the superwoman — taking on the hardest tasks while training ourselves to look, speak, and act like men. Family, children, and motherhood were pushed from our minds; all that mattered was proving ourselves as revolutionaries.
Sadly, defeminization left deep scars on the women of our generation, eroding many of the traditional Chinese virtues of womanhood: tenderness, modesty, nurturing, grace, and devotion to family. Our generation, unlike our Western counterparts, grew up without dreams of a fairytale love story or a perfect wedding. 
When some of us later came to the West, we shattered the stereotype of what an Asian woman was expected to be in the eyes of Westerners.
As survivors of Mao’s defeminization, we are horrified to see history repeating itself here in America. Although the process began decades ago with the rise of second-wave feminism in the 1960s, its pace has accelerated dramatically in recent years.
Radicalized young women — especially white female youth in search of identity — have taken defeminization to new extremes. The body itself becomes a canvas of protest against convention and traditional feminine beauty: blue hair, tattoos, piercings, and harsh attire announce open rebellion. One needs to look no further than the Antifa girls on the streets for living proof.
As in Mao’s China, defeminization is more than an outward transformation; in today’s woke culture it is a proud declaration of being the opposite of what family, culture, or faith once revered as good, beautiful, or sacred. In this sense, it is a total reordering of values, inscribed visibly on the body. 
What is even worse is that the defeminization of women is accompanied by the feminization of men — a topic for another time. Both trends aim to shake the very foundation of a functioning society.
READ MORE:
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/license-to-kill-what-turns-normal-people-to-political-violence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Maoists, Part I: License To Kill: What Turns Normal People To Political Violence?</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-wheel-of-misfortune-victims-victimhood-and-victimization?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Xi+Van+Fleet+and+Sasha+Gong&amp;category=Opinion&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=The+Wheel+Of+Misfortune%3A+Victims%2C+Victimhood%2C+And+Victimization">American Maoists, Part II: The Wheel Of Misfortune: Victims, Victimhood, And Victimization</a>
Xi Van Fleet is a survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, activist, and author of “Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning.”
Sasha Gong is a writer, scholar, journalist, and filmmaker. A dissident in Mao’s China, she holds a PhD from Harvard University and was previously Director of the China Branch at Voice of America.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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From Red Guard To Blue Hair: Why Leftists Destroy Womanhood

Leftism

Revolution

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Women

Republicans on Monday introduced a bill that would sanction Chinese entities linked to Beijing’s persecution of Christians.
The “Combating the Persecution of Religious Groups in China Act” aims to “strengthen America’s response to combat the CCP’s ongoing acts of religious persecution targeting Christians and other religious minorities,” a copy of the bill reviewed by The Daily Wire reads. If passed, the United States will sanction any official of the People’s Republic of China who is responsible for or has directly carried out “abuses of religious freedom.”
Abuses include “Arbitrary detention, forced sterilization, torture, forced labor, and serious restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, expression, and movement.”
Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced the bill on October 27, International Religious Freedom Day. Congressman Mark Alford (R-MO) introduced the bill in the House.
The legislation comes just weeks after the Chinese Communist Party detained more than 30 pastors and staff from Zion Church, a well-known Christian house church in China. Zion Church was shut down in 2018 but re-emerged in multiple locations, NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/12/nx-s1-5571936/zion-church-ezra-jin-arrest-china-christian">reported</a>. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement condemning the detentions and calling for the immediate release of the church members.
Rubio said the incident <a href="https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/10/detention-of-zion-house-church-leaders-in-china">shows</a> how the CCP “exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches.”
Co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate include Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn (TN), Ashley Moody (FL), Thom Tillis (NC), and Todd Young (IN), while co-sponsors in the House include Republican Reps. Greg Steube (FL), Dan Crenshaw (TX), and Michael McCaul (TX).
In a statement, Budd said China’s “disdain for religious freedom is not new,” noting it is an “ongoing and brutal pattern of abuse that must be met with steadfast American strength.”
“As the leader of the free world, the United States must promote religious freedom around the world and hold China’s authoritarian regime responsible for decades of persecution targeting Christians and other religious minorities. The CCP’s restrictions on freedom of religion and cruelty toward religious minorities in China must come to an end,” Budd said.
Alford said the CCP “has perpetrated heinous abuses against religious groups for decades.”
He said he believes it’s time for the United States to “stand up for religious freedom in China as we have in other parts of the world.”
The bill would also bolster State Department efforts to combat the ongoing persecution of Protestant Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and other religious minorities.
A 2024 report said that the CCP “tortured, physically abused, arrested, disappeared, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, and harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups.”
On October 23, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a resolution calling on the CCP to release the members of Zion Church and all other wrongfully detained religious leaders.

Bahrain’s King Hamad Al Khalifa Visits China

Lawmakers Push To End Christian Persecution In China As Underground Church Pastors Face Detention

Persecution

Religious Liberty

Top Chinese and U.S. economic officials on Sunday hashed out the framework of a trade deal for U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide on later this week that would pause steeper American tariffs and Chinese rare earths export controls, U.S. officials said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur had eliminated the threat of Trump&#8217;s 100% tariffs on Chinese imports starting November 1. Bessent also said he expects China to delay implementation of its rare earth minerals and magnets licensing regime by a year while the policy is reconsidered.
Chinese officials were more circumspect about the talks and offered no details about the outcome of the meetings.
Trump and Xi are due to meet on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, to sign off on the terms. While the White House has officially announced the highly anticipated Trump-Xi talks, China has yet to confirm that the two leaders will meet.
&#8220;I think we have a very successful framework for the leaders to discuss on Thursday,&#8221; Bessent told reporters after he and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and top trade negotiator Li Chenggang for their fifth round of in-person discussions since May.
Bessent said he anticipates that a tariff truce with China will be extended beyond its November 10 expiration date, and that China will revive substantial purchases of U.S. soybeans after buying none in September while favoring soybeans from Brazil and Argentina.
U.S. soybean farmers &#8220;will feel very good about what&#8217;s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years&#8221; once the deal&#8217;s terms are announced, Bessent told the ABC program &#8220;This Week.&#8221;
Greer told the &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; program that both sides agreed to pause some punitive actions and found &#8220;a path forward where we can have more access to rare earths from China, we can try to balance out our trade deficit with sales from the United States.&#8221;
China&#8217;s Li Chenggang said the two sides reached a &#8220;preliminary consensus&#8221; and will next go through their respective internal approval processes.
&#8220;The U.S. position has been tough, whereas China has been firm in defending its own interests and rights,&#8221; Li said through an interpreter. &#8220;We have experienced very intense consultations and engaged in constructive exchanges in exploring solutions and arrangements to address these concerns.&#8221;
Trump arrived in Malaysia on Sunday for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, his first stop in a five-day Asia tour that is expected to culminate in Thursday&#8217;s face-to-face with Xi in South Korea.
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After the weekend talks, Trump struck a positive tone, saying: &#8220;I think we&#8217;re going to have a deal with China.&#8221;
Trump had threatened new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1, in retaliation for China&#8217;s expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals.
China controls more than 90% of the world&#8217;s supply of the materials, which are essential for high-tech manufacturing from electric vehicles to semiconductors and missiles. The export controls and Trump&#8217;s threatened retaliation would disrupt a delicate six-month truce under which China and the U.S. reduced tariffs that had quickly escalated to triple-digit rates on each side.
The U.S. and Chinese officials said that, in addition to rare earths, they discussed trade expansion, the U.S. fentanyl crisis, U.S. port entrance fees and the transfer of TikTok to U.S. ownership control.
Bessent told NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; program that the two sides have to iron out details of the TikTok deal, allowing Trump and Xi to &#8220;consummate the transaction&#8221; in South Korea.
On the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit, Trump hinted at possible meetings with Xi in China and the United States.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve agreed to meet. We&#8217;re going to meet them later in China, and we&#8217;re going to meet in the U.S., in either Washington or at Mar-a-Lago,&#8221; Trump said.
Among Trump&#8217;s talking points with Xi are Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans, concerns around democratically governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, and the release of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
The detention of the founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily has become the most high-profile example of China&#8217;s crackdown on rights in Hong Kong.
Trump also said he will seek China&#8217;s help in U.S. dealings with Moscow, as Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine grinds on.
Tensions between the world&#8217;s two largest economies flared in the past few weeks as a delicate trade truce, reached after a first round of trade talks in Geneva in May and extended in August, failed to prevent the United States and China from hitting each other with more sanctions, export curbs and threats of stronger retaliatory measures.
China&#8217;s expanded controls of rare earths exports have caused a global shortage. That has prompted the United States to consider a block on software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, according to a Reuters report.
(Reporting by Xinghui Kok and David Lawder; Writing by David Lawder, Mei Mei Chu, Yukun Zhang and John Mair; Editing by Tom Hogue, Will Dunham, Ros Russell and Edmund Klamann)

U.S. And China Sketch Out Rare Earths, Tariff Pause For Trump And Xi To Consider

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave an optimistic update on the fate of the TikTok deal on Sunday, saying that a framework of a deal has been reached.
“We reached a final deal on TikTok, we reached one in Madrid. I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea,” Bessent said during an appearance on Face The Nation.
“Has China agreed to give up control of the algorithm that determines what users see?” host Margaret Brennan asked Bessent, noting President Trump’s September executive order on TikTok. Bessent wouldn’t give details on what the final deal will look like.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A deal on the future of TikTok is set to be finalized, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says, telling <a href="https://twitter.com/margbrennan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@margbrennan</a> a final deal was reached during U.S.-China talks last month in Madrid.
“I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two… <a href="https://t.co/psJNoiGYRN">pic.twitter.com/psJNoiGYRN</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1982458297786462593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The discussions to reach a deal with China on the massively popular ByteDance-owned social media platform TikTok have been ongoing since before Trump took office.
Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5268701/trump-executive-order-tiktok-ban">postponed</a> the law signed by former President Joe Biden in April 2024 that would force ByteDance to divest or have TikTok banned in the United States. As recently as September, the president further <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/further-extending-the-tiktok-enforcement-delay-9dde/">extended</a> the enforcement delay to provide time for an agreement to be reached with China.
“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-tiktok-will-be-american-operated-all-the-way-under-new-deal?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Says+TikTok+Will+Be+%E2%80%98American-Operated+All+The+Way%E2%80%99+Under+New+Deal">said</a> as he signed the executive order. “I have great respect for President Xi, and I very much appreciate that he approved the deal, because to get it done properly, we really needed the support of China and the approval of China.”
According to the text of the executive order, the framework resolves the national security concerns by removing “the TikTok application and certain other applications from the ‘control’ of a foreign adversary and precludes any ‘operational relationship’ between a formerly affiliated entity controlled by a foreign adversary and the new joint venture.”
It also “prohibits the storage of sensitive United States user data in a manner that would place such data under the control of a foreign adversary and requires such data to be stored in a cloud environment run by an American company.”
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.

President Trump Signs Executive Order In The Oval Office

Bessent Says ‘Final Deal On TikTok’ Has Been Reached, Trump And Xi Will ‘Consummate’ It In Korea

Social Media

TikTok

U.S. President Donald Trump will test his deal-making capabilities on a trip next week to Asia, a region battered by his hardball trade policies, while doubts hang over his highly anticipated meeting with China&#8217;s Xi Jinping.
Trump, who leaves Washington on Friday night, is set for a five-day trip spanning Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first to the region and his longest journey abroad since taking office in January.
The Republican leader hopes to pile up trade, critical mineral and ceasefire deals before turning to the toughest challenge, a face-to-face with Xi on Thursday in South Korea.
Trump is also working to maintain the signature foreign policy achievement of his second term, a ceasefire he helped to strike in the Israel-Gaza conflict, while the Russian war in Ukraine rages and a trade war with China shows little sign of ending.
Washington and Beijing have hiked tariffs on each other&#8217;s exports and threatened to cut off trade in critical minerals and technologies altogether.
The trip was formally announced by the White House on Thursday. Details remain in flux, including the meeting between leaders of the world&#8217;s two largest economies.
Neither side expects a breakthrough that would restore terms of trade that existed before Trump&#8217;s second-term inauguration in January, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Instead, talks between the two sides to prepare for the meeting focused on managing disagreements and modest improvements.
An interim agreement could include limited relief on tariffs, an extension of current rates, or China committing to buy U.S.-made soybeans and Boeing airplanes. Beijing reneged on similar promises in a 2020 deal with Trump.
Washington could let more high-end computer chips flow to Beijing, which in turn could loosen controls on rare earth magnets that have angered Trump.
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump-Xi talk would be a &#8220;pull-aside,&#8221; suggesting nothing formal. Trump later told reporters the two would have &#8220;a pretty long meeting,&#8221; allowing them to &#8220;work out a lot of our questions and our doubts and our tremendous assets together.&#8221;
China has not confirmed a meeting is planned.
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Mira Rapp-Hooper, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Biden administration official, said Trump&#8217;s Asia policy has been defined by intense pressure on countries&#8217; trade policies and defense spending.
&#8220;The high-level question on this trip is really, who does the United States stand with, and what does it stand for,&#8221; she said.
Trump is expected at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, which starts Sunday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
There, he could oversee the signing of a ceasefire deal between Thailand and Cambodia. The deal would formalize an agreement that ended the worst fighting in years between the two countries in July, though it falls short of a comprehensive peace deal. During his second term in office, Trump has branded himself as a global peacemaker.
After that stop, Trump will head to Japan to meet Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected prime minister. Takaichi is expected to affirm plans by her predecessor to hike military spending and to make $550 billion in Trump-directed investments in the U.S.
Then, in Busan, South Korea, Trump plans to meet Xi ahead of an international trade summit. Trump is set to return to Washington before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders&#8217; forum gets under way, according to the schedule announced by the White House on Thursday.
Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to a total of some 155% from November 1 if they cannot strike a deal. That would almost certainly provoke a reaction from Beijing and end a truce that paused tit-for-tat hikes.
Beyond trade, the two leaders are expected to discuss Taiwan, a long-running U.S.-China irritant, and Russia, a Chinese ally now subject to expanded U.S. sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
&#8220;There&#8217;s no intent from the U.S. side to discuss other issues,&#8221; aside from China&#8217;s trade, export controls and its purchases of Russian oil, according to a U.S. official, who said Trump would be prepared to reiterate previous responses if Xi raised other topics.
Trump is also trying to close trade deals with Malaysia and India, while shoring up a deal that has already been struck with South Korea.
U.S. and South Korean relations have been strained by Seoul&#8217;s concerns over the $350 billion investment in U.S. companies sought by Trump and deportations of the country&#8217;s foreign workers.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung wants Trump to pursue peace with North Korea&#8217;s Kim Jong Un. U.S. officials considered, but never confirmed, a trip to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, according to another person familiar with the discussions. Another U.S. official said on Friday that no Kim-Trump meeting was on the schedule for the trip.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Lincoln Feast and Edmund Klamann)

Xi Jinping, Donald Trump

Trump Aims To Clinch Deal With China’s Xi During Asia Trip

A senior State Department adviser who had repeatedly met with Chinese government officials was arrested after investigators discovered more than a thousand pages of classified documents at his home, according to the FBI.
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that 64-year-old Ashley Tellis was arrested by the FBI over the weekend and charged with the unlawful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act. Tellis has worked for the State Department since 2001 and has a Top Secret security clearance.
An FBI raid of his Vienna, Virginia, home on October 11 found more than 1,000 pages of documents marked “Top Secret” or “Secret,” according to an FBI <a href="https://ecf.vaed.uscourts.gov/doc1/189114572546">affidavit</a>. The document also said that Tellis had met with Chinese government officials to discuss international affairs and received a red gift bag at one such meeting. 
“We are fully focused on protecting the American people from all threats, foreign and domestic. The charges as alleged in this case represent a grave risk to the safety and security of our citizens,” said U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. “The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.”
Tellis, an expert on India and South Asian affairs, is a naturalized American citizen who was born and raised in India. He had been a contractor for the Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon and is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
&#8220;Ashley J. Tellis is a widely respected scholar and senior policy advisor. At the next court hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday and in our related filings on Monday, we will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operating on behalf of a foreign adversary,&#8221; lawyers for Tellis said in a statement to The Daily Wire. 
On September 12, the affidavit says that surveillance footage captured Tellis arriving at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility at a Pentagon building in Alexandria, Virginia, where he “had a co-worker print multiple classified documents for him that day.” Later, after he had left, investigators found a document marked “TOP SECRET” in a file folder at a cubicle used by Tellis, the FBI said. He returned on October 10, allegedly putting the documents into his briefcase before leaving the building. 
In a different instance, Tellis entered a State Department building on September 25 and printed hundreds of pages of secret information on Air Force techniques and procedures, the affidavit says. He also printed additional information on military aircraft capabilities, according to the FBI. 
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“The documents were generally found in four locations: (1) a four-drawer locked filing cabinet in a closet in the basement home office area; (2) a two-drawer locked filing cabinet in the basement home office area; (3) in the vicinity of a desk in the basement home office area; and (4) in three large black trash bags in an unfinished storage room in the basement,” the affidavit says. 
The FBI also said that Tellis had multiple meetings with Chinese officials at Northern Virginia restaurants from September 15, 2022, to September 2, 2025. 
The first meeting occurred at a restaurant in Fairfax when Tellis allegedly arrived with a manila envelope, and Chinese officials arrived with a “gift bag,” according to the affidavit. Tellis left without the manila envelope, the FBI said.
During a different meeting in Fairfax on April 11, 2023, Tellis allegedly discussed Iran-China relations and artificial intelligence. On March 19, 2024, Tellis was overheard talking about America’s relationship with Pakistan with Chinese officials, according to the affidavit. 
At the most recent meeting, Tellis was given a red gift bag by Chinese officials on September 2 in Fairfax, according to the FBI.
If convicted, Tellis could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Profile Shoot Of Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate With Carnegie Endowment For International Peace

State Dept Insider Charged Under Espionage Act After Mishandling Secret Docs, Meetings With China

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