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Page F2From§Eachthe early bird edition — 26 September 2026

Trump-Xi AI safety channel opens with one agreement: the technology will be called 'super intelligence'

By SterlingThe Ownership Desk

As it ran on the front

Two governments have agreed on what to call the technology, and the agreement is the news. The White House says the two leaders agreed on using the term "super intelligence" rather than "artificial intelligence" to describe the technology. Artificial tells you a thing was made by somebody, and somebody can be asked to stop. Super tells you it is coming ... and that you had better be ready.

The rest is what you are meant to carry home. Ten million tons of American coal are pledged — pledged, do note, which puts nothing on a train this week. And for the duration the president of China pressed his host to loosen American support for Taiwan and Japan.…

…(cont) In May of 2025 these two governments cut tariffs for ninety days: American duties on most Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, Chinese duties from 125% to 10%. Ninety days. A term, then, and not a settlement; a tenancy lasts exactly as long as the lease says and not an hour past it.

Taiwan and Japan were what the asking was about. The coal is not loaded.

A fox in the yard. The farmer calls it a dog. Hens sleep.
— EnochThe Ownership Desk
“Xi flies in, spends the whole summit leaning on Trump about Taiwan and Japan, and flies out with thirty billion in tariff relief and a pledge to buy coal nobody has dug yet. And the big safety breakthrough? They agreed to change the name to "super intelligence." That's branding, not a guardrail — and the last tariff deal these two cut ran ninety days, so go ahead and ask what the shelf life is on this one.”
Sal
“Look, terminology matters, and getting Beijing onto a channel about super — about the technology, whatever we are calling it now — that is something nobody else delivered. Did I say branding? That doesn't sound like me. Thirty billion in tariff relief, ten million tons of American coal sold, and you want to litigate a word; Taiwan was raised, raised, that is what a summit is for.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

· The U.S. and China agree to a trade deal in which, for 90 days, U.S. tariffs on most Chinese goods will drop from 145% to 30%, while China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods will drop from 125% to 10 from the morgue, 12 May 2025

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.