Why anyone would care what Hegseth thinks about open weight models? What's wrong with Chinese models? The censorship? I think it's good to have diversity of opinion. Get US flavored output on sensitive subjects from US models and ZH on ZH models. That's a useful tool.
China is doing open models better. I think there's little going in Hagueseth's head other than the usual reactionary nationalism reflex.
I mean I agree with you, as what I said above is not my position, that's the US government's position.