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America’s Decade-Long AI War Efforts Get a Trial by Fire
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March 31, 2026
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6:53Now PlayingOn a recent Friday night, the US made two drastic moves that could end up altering the future of artificial-intelligence-powered warfare. Just after 5 p.m. Eastern time on Feb. 27, Donald Trump’s administration declared that Anthropic PBC, the $380 billion startup whose Claude-branded AI products have recently become ubiquitous, was a supply chain risk. In addition to making consumer-facing chatbots and coding tools, Anthropic had major contracts to provide AI services to the military. That relationship had gone sour when the company refused to allow its tech to help enable mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, while the government said it should be able to use the tech for all lawful purposes. Bloomberg Katrina Manson discusses her new book Project Maven US President Donald Trump said he’ll only consider a halt to attacks on Iran when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, sowing further confusion about how long he’s prepared to continue the war.
Iran’s “New Regime President” has asked the US for a ceasefire, Trump said in a social-media post on Wednesday, possibly referring to comments Masoud Pezeshkian made Tuesday that the Islamic Republic has “the necessary will” to end this war — with certain guarantees.
“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear,” Trump said. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion.”
Trump’s comments came a day after he suggested he’s keen to exit the conflict sooner rather than later — regardless of a ceasefire with Iran or a deal to open Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for global energy supplies. “We’ll leave because there’s no reason for us to do this,” he told reporters in the White House. The US leader has vacillated throughout the month-long conflict between threatening a military escalation and saying a deal is imminent. Also on Wednesday, Reuters reported him as saying the US will be out of Iran “pretty quickly.”
Iran ensured Hormuz was closed off to most ships not long after the US and Israel began airstrikes on Feb. 28, and hasn’t offered any terms or timeline for a reopening. The future of the strait will be decided by Iran and Oman, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday, according to the state-run Press TV.
Araghchi said previously his country has been in direct contact with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, but told Al Jazeera that “does not mean that we are in negotiations.”
Hormuz won’t be opened based on the “absurd displays of the American president,” state-run IRIB added, citing a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Meanwhile, Iran fired missiles across the Middle East and Israel and the US kept up their bombardment of the Islamic Republic for a fifth week.
Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates all reported attacks overnight and into Wednesday, while QatarEnergy said a fuel oil tanker was struck in Qatari waters. That incident highlighted the ongoing threat to regional shipping and the month-long effective closure of Hormuz, which has choked off key commodities including fertilizer as well as oil and gas. Stocks and bonds surged earlier as investors took Trump’s Tuesday comments as a sign the crisis could be nearing an end. Oil prices briefly fell below $100 a barrel for the first time in more than a week, though later pared declines and remain around 40% higher than before the war began.
Trump had suggested the US has accomplished military goals such as preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. “We have had a regime change now,” he added, after US and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior figures. Khamenei was later replaced by his son, Mojtaba.
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