Lutnick Declares Administration’s Trust in Anthropic at G20 Meeting

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump administration now trusts Anthropic, telling Axios in an interview on September 1, 2026, that the AI company has done what the administration asked of it. The statement closes months of open conflict between the government and the Claude maker over national security and AI safeguards.

Asked directly whether he trusts Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Lutnick replied, “We trust Anthropic.” He added: “They’ve done what we asked. They’re back on the right side. So the answer is: Yes.”

The interview took place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where the U.S. Department of Commerce and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy co-hosted the G20 Innovation Ministerial on September 1 and 2, 2026, at the Carolina Inn. According to the department’s official media advisory, the gathering brought together commerce and technology ministers from more than 20 countries, with open-press fireside chats among the scheduled events.

Brown Takes a Public Role at the Ministerial

The rapprochement was on public display the following day. At the ministerial on September 2, 2026, Lutnick introduced Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown to the assembled G20 ministers, telling the room he was excited for their conversation and offering Brown the chance to introduce himself to an international audience. “I don’t think they know you so well. Anthropic, of course, is famous, but a little story helps,” Lutnick said.

Brown used the appearance to praise President Trump’s recent social media post supporting data center development. “I really love Trump’s post from earlier this week… where he was pointing out that the data centers are just an enormous source of prosperity,” Brown said. He added that data centers produce jobs and tax revenue and said that, the way Anthropic designs them, they bring more power onto the grid. Brown also highlighted Anthropic’s support for the administration’s ratepayer pledge.

That pledge tracks commitments Anthropic laid out in a February 11, 2026 policy post, in which the company said it would cover electricity price increases that consumers face from its data centers. The company committed to paying for all of the grid upgrades needed to interconnect its data centers through increases to its own monthly electricity charges, to procuring net-new power generation to match its data centers’ needs, and to investing in curtailment systems that cut power usage during periods of peak demand.

A Relationship Strained for Months

The warm words mark a sharp turn from earlier in 2026, when the administration moved against Anthropic on multiple fronts. On February 27, 2026, President Trump posted a directive ordering every federal agency to immediately cease all use of Anthropic’s technology, with a six-month phase-out for agencies already using its products. The same day, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced he was directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk to national security and ordered that no contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the U.S. military could conduct any commercial activity with the company. The government formalized the supply-chain designation in early March 2026 under a statute that lets the defense secretary exclude a source from sensitive procurements when that source poses a risk of sabotage or subversion.

The dispute grew out of contract negotiations in which the Department of War pressed Anthropic to drop usage restrictions on its models so they could be used for all lawful purposes. Anthropic refused to remove two limits, covering lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance of Americans. The clash also spilled into a separate channel: in June 2026, Lutnick’s Commerce Department ordered Anthropic to suspend exports of its most advanced models to foreign destinations and nationals, restricting overseas access to its frontier systems.

Anthropic sued on March 9, 2026, and the litigation ended in a decisive loss for the government. On August 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California granted Anthropic summary judgment in Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War, vacating the designation and the related directives. In her 59-page order on the cross-motions, Lin found that the challenged actions were unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment, that Anthropic had been denied the pre-deprivation process required under the Fifth Amendment, and that the supply-chain designation was contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.

The judge wrote that neither the Constitution nor the statute the government invoked permits imposing sweeping penalties based principally on Anthropic’s critique of the administration’s views. The administrative record, she found, showed a desire to make a public example of the company for what officials called its arrogance, rather than any articulable basis to believe Anthropic would sabotage its models. She noted that the government had conceded Anthropic lacks any ability to access, alter, or shut down its models once deployed in national security systems, and that the company’s technology presented no greater risk than any other so-called black box AI model. Lin also denied the government’s request to stay her permanent injunction, and the case was terminated on August 27, 2026.

A separate Anthropic challenge to a parallel supply-chain risk designation, issued under a different federal statute, remains pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Against that backdrop, Lutnick’s declaration this week, and the prominent stage given to Brown at an international ministerial hosted by the Commerce Department, formalize the company’s return to working standing with the administration.