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The US and Europe have discussed creating a “trusted partner” scheme for cutting-edge AI models, days after the Trump administration banned Anthropic from supplying its latest tool to foreign customers.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick had talked about the proposal with European diplomats on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France, according to people familiar with the matter.
The US decision to block Anthropic from exporting its Mythos and Fable models on national security grounds has increased fears in Europe and Silicon Valley that the Trump administration is prepared to weaponise access to US tech.
Leaders will debate the “trusted partner” idea at the summit in Evian-les-Bains on Wednesday, under which close US allies would receive privileged access to the latest models. Representatives of leading tech companies, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, are also due to attend the meeting.
The European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told the FT that Washington should avoid “discriminatory” measures against partners such as the EU.
“I think now it’s important also to discuss and also clarify together with the US side what kind of security concerns that they have had here, and what is also the best way to really mitigate those risks,” Virkkunen said.
Anthropic has billed Mythos as capable of discovering critical cyber security gaps, initially limiting its access on safety grounds to certain US organisations. Earlier this month, it extended access to select European institutions and companies.
OpenAI, whose GPT 5.5 model is deemed to be similarly advanced, is in the process of giving access to the EU’s cyber security agency Enisa and Nato, according to people familiar with the process.
But the US government last week ordered Anthropic to shut off access for non-US nationals after it found a way of bypassing security guardrails. Anthropic has said it is working with the Trump administration to address the concerns.
For Brussels, it is another incentive to reduce its dependence on US tech companies and increase its tech sovereignty, despite lagging behind players such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
“It’s of course never good to be too dependent on one company or third countries in critical technologies like AI,” said Virkkunen, adding that the Commission was in conversation with all AI service providers while focusing on boosting investments in Europe.
US tech companies have joined European countries in pressing for broader access. The SIIA, a US trade association that represents tech groups including Apple, Amazon and Google, issued a rare statement condemning the US government’s “unprecedented action” against Anthropic.
It warned the “arbitrary use of discretionary authority” on frontier models would “undermine efforts to advance adoption of the American AI stack globally”.
Additional reporting by Laura Dubois
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