The Trump administration is heading to court to defend its ban on federal use of Anthropic products, but removing the technology from government systems may be an even greater challenge.
In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply chain risk in early March, barring the military and defense contractors from using its products. President Trump also directed federal civilian agencies to “immediately cease” using the technology via a social media post. In response, Anthropic sued the administration, asking a federal court in California to issue a temporary halt to the supply chain risk designation and Trump’s directive. The company’s request has gained support across the tech industry, which has its own products and interests to consider. Confusion remains, however, over how far the designation will stretch.
Franklin Turner, Co-Chair of McCarter’s Government Contracts & Global Trade Practice told The Hill that “Companies are stepping up because they don’t want to be next. To allow this kind of thing to go unchallenged, I think a lot of folks believe [it] would be probably irresponsible from a corporate standpoint.”
The Pentagon has since set a 180-day deadline to remove all of Anthropic’s AI products and directed companies with business ties to the Defense Department to halt use of its technology. Franklin predicted companies will face “herculean hurdles” for the “supply chain cleansing exercise.”
“The upshot is it’s going to be very hard for most contractors to certify that Anthropic is nowhere in their supply chain,” he said, adding Anthropic “produces all sorts of things, and can be used to produce all sorts of things, including open source code, algorithmic open source code.”