U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican and close ally of Donald Trump, told Bloomberg in a phone interview that the United States may be underestimating both the quality and the scale of China’s technology and innovation ecosystem. His comments followed visits to Hangzhou and Guangzhou, made in part to prepare for the month‑end summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
Visits and companies he saw
During the trip Daines visited several companies and a university. He toured EHang, the company that manufactures passenger drones/"flying cars," and Manycore Tech, a developer of 3D design software that is considered one of China’s so‑called "six little dragons" among AI startups. He also visited the university where Liang Venfeng, founder of DeepSeek, graduated.
Daines said the United States needs to gain a much deeper understanding of this environment because it is competing against some of the world’s top minds.
Cooperation prospects and U.S. administration stance
Despite sharp technological rivalry and geopolitical tensions, Daines highlighted the possibility of cooperation with Beijing in artificial intelligence, citing life sciences and accelerating cancer treatments as examples where joint work could benefit both sides.
At the same time, the Trump administration has taken a more skeptical stance on AI collaboration with China. The article quotes Scott Bessent, described as a Treasury official in the piece, warning this week that if China pulls ahead of the United States in AI development, nothing else will matter and even a large U.S. defense budget would not provide protection.
Expectations for the summit and Daines’s background
Daines urged caution about expectations for the Trump–Xi summit, calling it the "first step of a thousand‑mile journey" and saying it would be premature to expect a breakthrough, while noting it is nonetheless a positive development that the two leaders will meet.
This was Daines’s second visit to China this year; in May he led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Beijing. He previously worked for Procter & Gamble in China and Hong Kong.
An AI assistant contributed to preparation of this article; the final content was edited and verified by our journalist.
