OpenAI and Anthropic, despite competing for customers, are aligning in Washington to warn policymakers about the risks of powerful Chinese open-weight AI models. This shared position pits the top U.S. AI labs against researchers, startups, and open-model advocates who argue broad access to AI is essential for competition and scientific progress. Closed-model labs stand to benefit from greater scrutiny of open-weight models, with critics including Trump administration adviser David Sacks warning that such scrutiny could amount to regulatory capture. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has argued that open-weight models are harder to keep safe because, once their weights are released, developers lose the ability to revoke access, update safety guardrails or prevent misuse. OpenAI views open source as part of "democratizing access," but within a national framework. OpenAI has warned against distillation, echoing top Trump administration officials, with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer saying the agency views Chinese distillation as a form of IP theft. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday said models from China need to be held to the same standards as U.S. models and would be looked into in the coming weeks. There are no detailed safety standards for U.S. models yet, and the administration is in the middle of figuring out what those should look like.