Stating the obvious here but Trump has ensured that the USG cannot credibly guarantee anything at all and hence this is a non-starter for foreign governments.
I think that’s an overstatement. There is still plenty of demand from international investors for U.S. assets, and e.g. yields on U.S. 30-year treasury bonds are not that high by historical standards (although they’ve been climbing somewhat since their historic lows in 2020.) If there is a reduction in confidence in other sorts of USG commitments, but maintained confidence in it’s basic financial commitments and in U.S. property law, then that might support the paper’s contention that the latter kind form a comparatively more reliable basis for positive-sum deals in relation to AGI-development than other types of agreements.
I invest in US assets myself but not because of any faith in the US, in fact the opposite—Firstly it’s like a fund manager investing into a known bubble—You know it’s going to burst but, if it doesn’t burst in the next year or so you cannot afford the short/medium term loss relative to your competitors and, secondly, If the US crashes it takes down the rest of the world with it and is probably the first to recover so you might as well stick with it. None of this translates to faith in US, AI, governance.
Your mention of positive-sum deals is particularly strange since, if the world has learned one thing about Trump, it is that he sees the world, almost exclusively, in zero sum terms.
Stating the obvious here but Trump has ensured that the USG cannot credibly guarantee anything at all and hence this is a non-starter for foreign governments.
I think that’s an overstatement. There is still plenty of demand from international investors for U.S. assets, and e.g. yields on U.S. 30-year treasury bonds are not that high by historical standards (although they’ve been climbing somewhat since their historic lows in 2020.) If there is a reduction in confidence in other sorts of USG commitments, but maintained confidence in it’s basic financial commitments and in U.S. property law, then that might support the paper’s contention that the latter kind form a comparatively more reliable basis for positive-sum deals in relation to AGI-development than other types of agreements.
I invest in US assets myself but not because of any faith in the US, in fact the opposite—Firstly it’s like a fund manager investing into a known bubble—You know it’s going to burst but, if it doesn’t burst in the next year or so you cannot afford the short/medium term loss relative to your competitors and, secondly, If the US crashes it takes down the rest of the world with it and is probably the first to recover so you might as well stick with it. None of this translates to faith in US, AI, governance. Your mention of positive-sum deals is particularly strange since, if the world has learned one thing about Trump, it is that he sees the world, almost exclusively, in zero sum terms.