Opinion

We should use Reagan as a guide in handling our modern arms race with China

Trump should use meeting with Xi Jinping to turn America's chip advantage into negotiating leverage

By Chris Stewart Fox News

Published September 18, 2026 5:00am EDT

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I can still remember, as a young Air Force officer, sitting in the cockpit of my B-1 bomber knowing that we could deliver nuclear weapons virtually anywhere in the world.

I also remember watching President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 to negotiate nuclear arms reductions. The whole world was watching. The nuclear arms race was a global threat, and the world’s two most powerful nations had a responsibility to confront it.

Now imagine that, as Reagan sat across the table from Gorbachev, American companies were selling Moscow the technology it needed to make its nuclear arsenal even more powerful.

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The idea would have been absurd.

At the closing ceremony for the Geneva Summit, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan face each other on November 21, 1985. (Bettmann via Getty Images)

Yet today, as the United States enters another potentially historic technological arms race, we are entertaining a remarkably similar proposition: selling China the advanced computer chips it needs to build the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence.

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Advanced AI chips........

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